Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement by Angela Joy

Abstract

Reviewed by: Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement by Angela Joy Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Joy, Angela Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement; illus. by Janelle Washington. Roaring Brook, 2022 [64p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781250220950 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781250893673 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 3-5 The epigraph of this poignant biography—"I just had to pray and brave it"—embodies and is attributed to its subject, Mamie Till-Mobley, a woman who chose to make her personal pain politically relevant. It's a unique focus, stepping away from the horrific details that made Emmett Till's death such a lightning rod for the civil rights movement to instead examine his mother's life before and after the loss of her son. Intelligent and determined, Mamie nonetheless dealt with her fair share of hardships, including the abandonment of her father and the abuse by and then death of her husband. But it's clear Emmett was her pride and joy; readers see Mamie encourage his rambunctiousness, nurture him through illness—and teach him to whistle through his stutter, a trick that might have ultimately attracted the attention of his killers. She translated her grief into power: "it would have been easy, then, to go to sleep beside him; to save her pain for privacy … But Mamie did the braver thing. She sounded the alarm." The book is careful to admire that bravery and endurance but quick to grieve the fact that she needed to muster such strength at all. By placing Emmett's murder in the context of her life, the narrative brings a deep intimacy to the portrayal of a woman mourning her son, not a symbol. The cut paper art is startling in its use of negative space, casting the scene in which Mamie learns of Emmett's death in deep shadow and later pulling in layers of red as the jury's acquittal of his murderers is announced. The last illustrated page, featuring the silhouette of a woman at church surrounded by the names of Black people killed recently in hate crimes, is made more gut-wrenching by the author and illustrator notes. [End Page 52] Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois