AMERICAN EXPERIENCE - Joyce

historical contex
The setting of the film is the summer and fall of 1955. Early on the morning of August 28, 1955, Emmett Till, a 14 year-old African American teenager, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Mississippi. The crime sent shockwaves throughout the nation and the rest of the world. His death came at a time of heightened racial tension in the American South following the Brown vs. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court the previous year, which mandated an end to race-based segreation in schools. The trial and acquittal of the accused murderers galvanized the nascent Civil Rights Movement and forever changed American society.

activity
First watch the film. After the film, complete a reaction essay (approximately one page) to depict your personal response to what you saw or heard that had the biggest impact on you and your evaluation of the problem of law in a political society.