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Book excerpt: "The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi" by Wright Thompson

CBS News
Summary
Nutrition label

70% Informative

Wright Thompson's bestseller, " The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi ," explores the culture of silence that enveloped the Mississippi Delta over the 1955 murder of Emmett Till .

Read an excerpt below, and don't miss Jim Axelrod's interview with Wright Thompson on December 1 !.

EazyE 's grandparents ran a grocery store sixteen blocks up Broadway in Greenville from the house where J.W. Milam lived when he died.

The blues came from the land around Dockery Farms , the birthplace of the Delta blues.

The family still owns their plantation and has set up Dockery as a living museum.

Willie Reed walked six miles in the dark, skirting the edge of Dockery Farms .

He only had two other options to escape: DrewMerigold Road , DrewRuleville Road .

Reed likely passed his girlfriend Ella Mae Stubbs's home, but didn't have time to tell her goodbye.

Medgar Evers drove Reed north in Evers 's Oldsmobile 88 with a bigblock V8 to Memphis Airport .

VR Score

80

Informative language

82

Neutral language

53

Article tone

semi-formal

Language

English

Language complexity

34

Offensive language

likely offensive

Hate speech

possibly hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

medium-lived

External references

7

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