Please join us for a conversation between author Ronald Collins and Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), about Collins’ book, Tragedy on Trial: The Story of the Infamous Emmett Till Murder Trial.

Tragedy on Trial reveals as never before the entire and shocking story of the 1955 trial of Emmett Till’s murderers. As Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund writes: 

“The judicial system is a highly orchestrated attempt at truth-telling toward the aim of justice. The Till case—as more thoroughly revealed through Ronald Collins’s groundbreaking text Tragedy on Trial—exposes one of that system’s greatest betrayals. As we confront a deepening crisis of confidence in our courts and a war on truth and history, the revelations of this primary document are especially timely and urgent. The ‘Till moment’ is an unending and pressing reminder that, until we take the time necessary to confront this miscarriage of justice head on, and address the unfinished business that is the tragedy of Emmett Till and everything his murder and the acquittal of his killers represent, we will remain haunted. Thankfully, Collins has brilliantly unlocked a critical historical component of that difficult journey and dared us to embark.” 

For in-person attendees, books will be available for sale and a reception will follow the event.