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I Refuse

I Refuse: Episode 1: My Son, Emmett Till

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Episode 1

Episode 1: My Son, Emmett Till

My Son, Emmett Till

BBC Radio 4 Extra - I Refuse, My Son, Emmett TillSearch BBC

Powerful short story about an incident that galvanised the American civil rights movement.

By Fred D'Aguiar. 4 Extra Debut. An act of resistance that galvanised the fledgling American civil rights movement. Read by Adjoa Andoh.

First in a series of three short stories commissioned to mark the centenary of the birth of the American Civil Rights heroine Rosa Parks, who famously refused to move seats on an Alabama bus to accommodate white passengers. The stories illustrate moments of resistance and are inspired by acts of determination and non-cooperation, committed by ordinary people (real or imagined) fighting against prevailing attitudes and political authority.


Today, writer Fred D'Aguiar focuses upon a true story, a moment of resistance which helped to ignite the American Civil Rights Movement. In August 1955, a fourteen year old black boy, Emmett Till, who was visiting relatives in Mississippi, was murdered by two white men because he had whistled at a white woman. When his badly beaten body was recovered, his mother refused to allow the coffin lid to be closed: she wanted the world to see what had been done to her son. 


It was an act that galvanised the emerging civil rights movement. Three months later, in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat. She is quoted as saying: "I thought about Emmett Till, and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated. I was not going back."


Read by Adjoa Andoh.


Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.

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Stories marking the centenary of the birth of American civil rights heroine Rosa Parks

Three short stories marking the centenary of the birth of American civil rights heroine Rosa Parks

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