Learn how your ad can appear here! Get Your Vision Board Iphone/Ipod App and start moving toward your dreams today! Books by this Author 301+ Ways to Get Ahead: Business Success from Home If you want to kiss your boss good-bye, this book could be your ticket to a home-based business. Lots and lots of examples of possible home-based activities are included along with stories of real people from across the county who have their own businesses, from accountants to zen instructors.   How Branson Got Started How Branson Got Started is the captivating story of how a small Missouri town -- less that 5,000 people -- has become the world's live entertainment capital.   Internet Success with Fred This is a very good introduction to the Internet. If you're smart enough to get this book, you won't need another because you'll learn by doing.   The Emmett Till Book What happened to cause a young African American student's lynching in the Mississippi Delta? When Emmett "BoBo" Till threatened Mississippi's rigid Jim Crow laws this fourteen-year-old paid with his life. Till's murderers were set free yet his death spurred Rosa Parks to take her important stand in Montgomery. In this 50th anniversary, the case has finally been reopened with new and intriguing information.   Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited Discover unresolved Mississippi murders - untold stories of the civil rights era. Susan Klopfer's "Where Rebels Roost" reveals new information about unique, persevering and brave people -- many who were murdered and forgotten.   Feature Articles: - Things to do in Central Park this Fall... - Things to do in Chicago in the Fall... - Why Snowbirds Migrate to Florida for the Wint... - Seeking a Luxurious Upper East Side Hotel Exp... - Rural Holiday Villas in Tenerife... - The Northwest of Tenerife... - Walking & Hiking in Tenerife... - The Green North of Tenerife... Click here for more >>

Whether motivated by new laws intended to prosecute unpunished crimes from the civil rights era or by election of this country's first black president -- to expect heightened interest in civil rights topics just makes sense.

On October 7 the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act was signed by President George Bush, giving the Justice Department $10 million a year to examine civil rights killings from before 1970 and $3.5 million to help local law enforcement conducting such investigations.

One month later U. S. Senator Barack Obama became the United States' first black president-elect.

Hosts of veterans of the civil rights movement have already written personal accounts of their experiences surrounding critical marches, trials, sit-ins and more.

Historians have completed biographies of Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks and Emmett Till that include limited stories about Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry and a handful of others who worked so hard to make a difference.

But what of the regular, everyday people who also helped bring about this change? Their stories, often coming from fear, anger, dignity and grace, make textbook history come alive.

IN OUR MID 50s, my husband and I moved to this distinct northwest section of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers . . . with no sense of where we were historically and limited knowledge of the region's complex history or culture.

First I learned that the Delta was not a true delta but part of an alluvial plain; for historical and cultural reasons, it is still called The Delta and names of the Delta's seventeen counties range from Bolivar and Coahoma to Leflore, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, and Yazoo, adding to the region's historical mystique.

Still are traces of U.S. Route 61, also known as the Blues Highway because it runs through Delta country, considered the birthplace of blues music.

Fred had accepted a new job as a prison mental health director placing him in the state's oldest facility, Parchman Penitentiary, 120 miles north of Jackson, the state's capital.

Nearby, the junction of Highway 61 and Highway 49 in Clarksdale is designated as the famous crossroads where, according to legend, Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for mastery of the blues.

With not much to do and time on my hands, there were small restaurants and shops to discover, drives to take into tiny cotton towns and along gravel roads that disappear into the Delta's cotton fields -- all providing a unique opportunity to meet some very old, interesting people with stories to tell.

Their memories augmented and sometimes challenged what formal historians report. Here's a story, for instance, that enhances the story of Emmett Till, the young Chicagoan killed in 1955 in the small town of Money, in the heart of Sunflower County.

One July morning in 2003, I watched as Walter Scurlock was preparing turnip greens for customers who would start arriving for lunch in the next 30 minutes...

"Someone's got to listen to her," he said of an older, white woman he'd known for a good number of years.

Scurlock finished boiling down the greens and poured off the water to remove any bitter taste.

Early that morning, the woman had come into his restaurant, her eyes flowing with tears. "She started apologizing to me about something her family did fifty years ago, down in Ruleville."

Scurlock continued talking as he placed the greens in a skillet with bacon grease, salt and pepper and started cooking them down more, so they would be tasty and tender for his noon crowd.

"Why don't you go over to her house and talk to her? She was saying something to Jessie and me about Emmett Till and about her parents. It sounded pretty interesting and since you're writing that book about the Delta I thought you might want to hear what she has to say, so that's why I called you," he said.

Walter was right. I was interested in learning more from the lady. Jessie Scurlock placed a skillet of cornbread -- real southern cornbread made with bacon drippings and buttermilk -- into the hot oven and warm smells began to float out.

She smiled at me from the kitchen while stirring a mixture of vanilla pudding mix, smashed bananas, eggs, milk and sugar for her southern banana pudding, another customer favorite and like the cornbread, considered a staple in the South. "Yes, you should go over there," Jessie said.

There were today's collards with okra, mustard greens, and fried catfish still to finish cooking in the next half-hour and the Scurlocks refocused while I wrote down the lady's phone number, went out to my car and called her on my cell.

That same afternoon, after enjoying a cup of tea in her home, the woman began sharing her story of how her own parents hid out the murderers of Emmett Till. She asked that I not divulge her name and I agreed to this request.

Her uncle had sneaked two men into her family's Ruleville home on the morning of August 28, 1955, the same night that Till was kidnapped and killed.

His body sank into the shallow Tallahatchie River for three days before it reappeared and was discovered and retrieved by two fishermen. The fourteen-year-old had been beaten and his eye gouged out before he was shot through the head and thrown into the river with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire.

His mother demanded a public funeral back in Chicago to display the brutality done to her young son. Among those dismayed by the story was Rosa Louise McCauley Parks of Montgomery, Alabama. And with Till in mind, on December 1, 1955, she refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. The U.S. Congress later called Parks the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement".

The lady from Drew kept talking. As she settled into her story, I asked permission to take notes.

"I was seventeen, then. My parents didn't tell me what was going on at the time. J.W. [Milam] had a full brother, Bud, and I am very sure he was with them, too. I was in bed but I could hear their voices. Years later, my father told me that Milam and [Roy] Bryant let him know what they had done to Emmett Till. My father was angry and made them leave.

"They knew the law was looking for them. They also said that Carolyn Bryant was with them when they killed Emmett Till. I don't know when Bud joined them. I think they caught up with him later. He was a nicer person than his brother, and I don't think he would have killed someone -- I hope not."

The old woman's memories had returned, she said, as recent stories of young Till's murder kept appearing in the national media in the context of civil rights cold cases.

There had been a trial of Milam and Bryant in the fall of 1955. They were found innocent but later admitted to the murder. Others may have been involved and fifty years later new information was being sought that would allow the re-opening and resolution of Till's murder.

"I'm so sorry this happened and I feel terrible that any of my family members were involved in any way," she said.

As it turned out, on May 10, 2004, the United States Department of Justice announced that it was reopening the case to determine whether anyone other than Milam and Bryant was involved. Although the statute of limitations prevented charges being pursued under federal law, they could be pursued before the state court, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and officials in Mississippi worked jointly on the investigation. Till's body was exhumed on May 31, 2005 and the Cook County coroner conducted an autopsy. The body was reburied by relatives on June 4. It has been positively identified as that of Emmett Till.

In February 2007, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported that both the FBI and a Leflore County Grand Jury, which was empanelled by Joyce Chiles, a black prosecutor, decided not to pursue charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham, Roy Bryant's ex-wife.

* * *

Did I gather all of the information that I should have? Should I have asked for more details? Should I have waited a few days to prepare for the interview?

Was the interview environment right? Did I tell the storyteller about my plans to use the information? Did this seem to matter? How accurate were her memories? How do I know? Does it matter?

When an interview comes from out of the blue there is usually little time to prepare -- so here are a few tips

Try to choose an interview setting with little distraction. If possible, avoid loud lights or noises, make sure the person interviewed is comfortable -- ask them if they are. Often, they may feel more comfortable in their home or office, some place they can be uninterrupted and not seen.

Explain the purpose of the interview and talk over terms of confidentiality. Be careful since rarely can you absolutely promise anything. Tell them how to get in touch with you later if they want to and ask them if they have any questions before you both get started with the interview.

In an informal interview, just listen at first without taking notes. Watch the person speak and show that you are truly interested in what is being said.

But don't count on your memory to recall their answers. There will come a right time to ask for permission to record the interview (pencil and pad).

Never start digitally recording an interview without getting permission. Many people simply don't share the best details or freeze up if a recording device comes out.

Try saying, "This is an important story you are telling me. I'm afraid I might not remember everything. May I take some notes?"

Try remaining open and adaptable; really listen to the story you are hearing and the right questions will come, even though you have not had the time in advance to think about what to ask.

Often these end up as the best questions, anyway.

Finally, don't be hard on yourself after conducting this type of an interview. Not every question will be presented in the best way and you may have problems later deciphering some of your notes or recalling what was exactly said.

Attempts to make the structure too stiff or formal would typically make it impossible to gather the information you are seeking in the first place.

If a potentially fascinating interview drops in your lap -- accept this gift from the universe and simply do your best to get it down.

For this is the stuff from which history is made!

(From Mississippi Grace by Susan Klopfer, Spring 2009)