FSU undergraduate student, Jessica Primiani, has discovered documents from an African-American newspaper (the St. Louis Argus) which were long missing and shed new insights about the Emmett Till murder case. In 1955, Till, a 14-year-old black boy, was brutally killed after allegedly flirting with a white woman in Money, Mississippi. This incident and his trial helped spur the civil rights movement.
Primiani, a Communication and English double major, has been working on a direct study project with Davis Houck, School of Communication Professor and co-author of a book about the media’s coverage of the Till trial. Her discovery of these newspaper archives has received national media coverage by the National Public Radio and a story by Jerry Mitchell, a prominent civil rights investigative reporter (with the Jackson Clarion Ledger).
- Read the full story published by the Jackson Clarion Ledger on March 29:
blogs.clarionledger.com/ - Read and listen to the full story published by the National Public Radio on March 30:
npr.org/2013/03/31/175808536/archival-find-could-shed-new-light-on-emmett-till-murder - Find more details in a separate story published by FSU University Communications on April 3:
news.fsu.edu/More-FSU-News/Student-makes-important-research-discovery-in-old-civil-rights-case
Article written by: Davis Houck; Edited by: Natalie Kates