Harvard Professor Tiya Miles Wins National Book Award in the Nonfiction Category

Tiya Miles, a professor of history and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and director of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, has won the National Book Award in the nonfiction category. Professor Miles was honored for her book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake (Random Houe, 2021).

In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis, the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few precious items as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley’s survival. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language— including Rose’s wish that “It be filled with my Love always.” Ruth’s sewn words, the reason we remember Ashley’s sack today, evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations.

The contents of Ashley’s sack — a tattered dress, handfuls of pecans, a braid of hair, “my Love always”—are eloquent evidence of the lives these women lived. As she follows Ashley’s journey, Miles metaphorically unpacks the bag, deepening its emotional resonance and exploring the meanings and significance of everything it contained.

The citation for the National Book Award reads: “A brilliant, original work, All That She Carried presents a Black woman’s countercompilation of lives that ordinary archives suppress. Tiya Miles’s graceful prose gives us narrative history, social history, and object history of women’s craft through the things Rose gave the daughter she was losing forever. With depth and breadth, Miles offers the visual record of love in the face of the child trafficking atrocities of slavery. This book is scholarship at its best and most heartrending.”

Dr. Miles was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Afro-American studies from Harvard University, a master’s degree in women’s studies from Emory University in Atlanta, and a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Minnesota. Before coming to Harvard, Professor Miles taught on the faculty of the University of Michigan for 16 years, where she served as chair of the department of Afroamerican & African studies.

Check Out Professor Tiya Miles' book on Amazon

Emmett Till Docuseries 'Let the World See' to Premiere in January 2022

ABC News announced today the special limited docuseries Let The World See, produced in association with Shawn Carter and Roc Nation, Will Smith and Westbrook Studios, and Aaron Kaplan and Kapital Entertainment. The series will chronicle Ms. Mamie Till-Mobley’s fierce quest for justice that sparked the civil rights movement after her son Emmett Till’s brutal murder, inspiring heroes like Ms. Rosa Parks and others to stand up boldly for their rights. Let The World See premieres Thursday, Jan. 6 (10:01-11:00 p.m. EST), on ABC and will air for three consecutive Thursday nights following each new episode of ABC’s upcoming limited series Women of the Movement, also produced by Roc Nation, Westbrook Studios and Kapital Entertainment.

Let The World See is a fresh and deep examination of Ms. Mamie Till-Mobley’s fight to bring her son’s body home to Chicago and her pivotal yet heartbreaking decision to have an open-casket funeral for the public to see, which ultimately served as a turning point for the civil rights movement. The docuseries also traces Ms. Mamie Till-Mobley’s journey back to the Jim Crow South to face her son’s murderers in court. The program will illustrate how the Till family has continued her legacy since her death in 2003, remaining active in the movement as the deaths of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Ms. Breonna Taylor and others sparked protests around the country.

Weaving together first-hand accounts from Emmett Till’s family, Let The World See includes interviews with Emmett Till’s cousins Rev. Wheeler Parker, who was a witness to the abduction, Ms. Ollie Gordon and Amos Smith, and Ms. Thelma Wright, Ms.Mamie Till-Mobley’s cousin. The docuseries also features interviews with Rev. Jesse Jackson, activist and friend of Ms. Mamie Till-Mobley; FBI agent Lent Rice, who was a part of the team that opened a new investigation into Emmett Till’s case more than 50 years after his death; journalist Dan Wakefield, who covered the Emmet Till murder trial; and Ms. Betty Pearson, who watched the Emmett Till murder trial in the courtroom more than 60 years ago. The special programming also highlights deeply personal insights from contemporary authors, including Ms. Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give), Christopher Benson (Death of Innocence), John Edgar Wideman (Writing to Save a Life) and Michael Eric Dyson (Long Time Coming), who visits the scene of the crime for a special reading of his Letter to Emmett Till.

Let The World See is produced by ABC News Studios in association with Roc Nation, Westbrook Studios, Kapital Entertainment and Cobble Hill Films and is directed by Ms. Jeanmarie Condon and Ms. Fatima Curry. Ms. Condon and Ms. Curry are executive producers for Cobble Hill Films and ABC News Studios, respectively; Shawn Carter, Tyran Smith and Jay Brown are executive producers for Roc Nation; Will Smith is executive producing for Westbrook Studios and James Lassiter also serves as executive producer; Aaron Kaplan is executive producer for Kapital Entertainment.

SNEAK PEEK: ‘Let The World See’ docuseries

Buck O’Neil going into National Baseball Hall of Hall of Fame

Buck O’Neil, a champion of Black ballplayers during a monumental, eight-decade career on and off the field has been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.

John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil Jr. (November 13, 1911 – October 6, 2006) was a first baseman and manager in the Negro American League, mostly with the Kansas City Monarchs. After his playing days, he worked as a scout and, among his many credits, is credited for signing Hall of Fame player Lou Brock to his first professional baseball contract. O’Neil later became the first African-American coach in Major League Baseball.

O'Neil was a fixture in baseball for nearly his entire life, and was instrumental in the development and growth of the Negro Leagues Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum located in Kansas City, Missouri. On December 7, 2006, O'Neil was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.

O'Neil will be enshrined in Cooperstown, New York, on July 24, 2022, along with any new members elected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

U.S. Justice Department closes Emmett Till investigation with no new charges

The U.S. Justice Department told relatives of Emmett Till on Monday that it is ending its latest investigation into the 1955 lynching of the Black teenager from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and killed after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman in Mississippi.

Till’s family said it was disappointed by the news that there will continue to be no accountability for the infamous killing, with no charges being filed against Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman accused of lying about whether Till ever touched her.

“Today is a day we will never forget,” Till’s cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker, said during a news conference in Chicago. “For 66 years we have suffered pain. … I suffered tremendously.” The killing galvanized the civil rights movement after Till’s mother insisted on an open casket, and Jet magazine published photos of his brutalized body.

The Justice Department reopened the investigation after a 2017 book quoted Donham as saying she lied when she claimed that 14-year-old Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances while she was working in a store in the small community of Money. Relatives have publicly denied that Donham, who is in her 80s, recanted her allegations about Till.

Donham told the FBI that she had never recanted her accusations and there is “insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she lied to the FBI,” the Justice Department said in a news release Monday. Officials also said that Timothy B. Tyson, the author of 2017’s “The Blood of Emmett Till” was unable to produce any recordings or transcripts in which Donham allegedly admitted to lying about her encounter with the teen.

“In closing this matter without prosecution, the government does not take the position that the state court testimony the woman gave in 1955 was truthful or accurate,” the news release said. “There remains considerable doubt as to the credibility of her version of events, which is contradicted by others who were with Till at the time, including the account of a living witness.” Days after Till was killed, his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, where it was tossed after being weighted down with a cotton gin fan.

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act requires the Justice Department to make an annual report to Congress. No report was filed in 2020, but a report filed in June of 2021 indicated that the department was still investigating the abduction and killing of Till.

Minnesota launches the nation’s first-ever task force on missing Black women

Minnesota State Represenative Ruth Richardson

Minnesota has become the first state in the nation to launch a panel addressing the disproportionately high number of missing and murdered Black women and girls.

On Monday, Gov. Walz and Lt. Governor Flanagan, flanked by victim advocates, lawmakers, and public safety officials, including Rep. Ruth Richardson (DFL-Mendota Heights) and Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington, held a ceremonial bill signing at the Capri Theater in Minneapolis to launch the nation’s first Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force.

The 12-member task force, established with bipartisan support in the 2021 Public Safety and Judiciary Omnibus bill, will report recommendations to the Legislature to end violence against African American women and girls in Minnesota. The panel is comprised of victim advocates, law enforcement, and court officials who met for the first time on Monday.

“We know African American women and girls are disproportionately subject to violent crime,” Gov. Walz said. “That’s why we took action and established a first-in-the-nation Missing and Murdered African American Women task force.”

In 2020, almost 34% of the missing women in the U.S. were Black, according to the National Crime Information Center of the FBI, while Census data shows that Black women make up just 15% of the U.S. population.

“We are seeing African American women killed in numbers we’ve never seen before,” Commissioner Harrington said at Monday’s press conference. “Despite the small number of African Americans in Minnesota, 30% of the victims in domestic violence settings are African American women.”

A recent Violence Free Minnesota’s (VFM) report found disproportionate numbers of Black and Native domestic violence homicide victims compared to statewide demographics.

“In 2020, 40% of domestic violence homicide victims were Black, while comprising less than 7% of Minnesota’s population,” read the VFM report. “Four women were pregnant at the time they were killed by a current or former intimate partner, and three of them were Black. These violent disparities are attributed to histories of colonization, chattel slavery, genocide, generational trauma, and ongoing systematic oppression.”

Rep. Richardson, who spearheaded the legislation behind the task force, spoke about the disproportionately high numbers of missing and murdered Black women and girls during an appearance on Peacock’s “Zerlina.”

“I think one of the things that we’re really struggling with as a society is that we have not done enough work to place a value on the lives of Black women and Black girls,” Rep. Richardson said. “Because when we look at the data, we see some really concerning disparities. Cases involving Black women and girls stay open four times longer than cases involving other women.”

She added, “Black girls are much less likely to get Amber Alerts than White girls are. And that’s a really important distinction because when there are no Amber Alerts, there are no police resources invested in the critical first 48 hours. And you don’t get the media attention when someone is classified as a runaway versus a child in need of support or seen as a victim.”