A Wreath for Emmett Till

Introduction:
Marilyn Nelson was nine when Emmett Till was lynched. His history has been part of her life. Nelson wrote this book to let other young people know what challenges and injustices people experience. This poem would be perfect to read during a civil rights lesson.

Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood
By Marilyn Nelson

Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood
My heartwood has been scarred for fifty years
By what I heard, with hundreds of green ears.
That jackal laughter. Two hundred years I stood
Listening to small struggles to find food,
To the songs of creature life, which disappears
And comes again, to the music of spheres.
Two hundred years of deaths I understood.
Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
Shivering the deep silence of the stars.
A running boy, five men in close pursuit.
One dark, five pale faces in the moonlight.
Noise, silence, black-slaps. One match, five cigars.
Emmett Till’s name still catches in the throat.

[from A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL by Marilyn Nelson, Illustrated by, Philippe Lardy, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005]

Extension:
Invite students to share their emotions after hearing the poem.