In a small Southern town, a white man murders a black man, then throws his body in the weeds. With this act of violence--which is loosely based on the notorious 1955 killing of Emmett Till--James Baldwin launches an unsparing and at times agonizing probe of the wounds of race.
For where once a white storekeeper could have shot a "boy" like Richard Henry with impunity, times have changed. And centuries of brutality and fear, patronage and contempt, are about to erupt in a moment of truth as devastating as a shotgun blast.
In his award-winning play, Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-intentioned whites are implicated--and in which even a killer receives his share of compassion.
- ISBN10 0804149747
- ISBN13 9780804149747
- Publish Date 17 September 2013 (first published 18 September 1970)
- Publish Status Active
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Vintage Books
- Format eBook
- Pages 103
- Language English