
The Barn
The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
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Narrated by:
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Wright Thompson
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By:
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Wright Thompson
About this listen
The instant New York Times bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe • Nominated for a PEN America Literary Award
“It literally changed my outlook on the world…incredible.” —Shonda Rhimes
"The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel… The Barn describes not just the poison of silence and lies, but also the dignity of courage and truth.” — The Washington Post
“The most brutal, layered, and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi, I will ever read…Reporting and reckoning can get no better, or more important, than this.” —Kiese Laymon
“An incredible history of a crime that changed America.” —John Grisham
A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long
Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing.
In August 1955, two men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were charged with the torture and murder of the 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. After their inevitable acquittal in a mockery of justice, they gave a false confession to a journalist, which was misleading about where the long night of hell took place and who was involved. In fact, Wright Thompson reveals, at least eight people can be placed at the scene, which was inside the barn of one of the killers, on a plot of land within the six-square-mile grid whose official name is Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, fabled in the Delta of myth as the birthplace of the blues on nearby Dockery Plantation.
Even in the context of the racist caste regime of the time, the four-hour torture and murder of a Black boy barely in his teens for whistling at a young white woman was acutely depraved; Till’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to keep the casket open seared the crime indelibly into American consciousness. Wright Thompson has a deep understanding of this story—the world of the families of both Emmett Till and his killers, and all the forces that aligned to place them together on that spot on the map. As he shows, the full horror of the crime was its inevitability, and how much about it we still need to understand. Ultimately this is a story about property, and money, and power, and white supremacy. It implicates all of us. In The Barn, Thompson brings to life the small group of dedicated people who have been engaged in the hard, fearful business of bringing the truth to light. Putting the killing floor of the barn on the map of Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, and the Delta, and America, is a way of mapping the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wound.
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Story
At a time when popular solutions to the educational plight of poor children of color are imposed from the outside, the acclaimed Algebra Project and its founder, Robert Moses, offer a vision of school reform based in the power of communities. Founded on the belief that math-science literacy is a prerequisite for full citizenship in society, the Project works with entire communities—parents, teachers, and especially students—to create a culture of literacy around algebra, a crucial stepping-stone to college math and opportunity.
By: Robert P. Moses, and others
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Death of Innocence
- The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America
- By: Mamie Till-Mobley, Christopher Benson
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Christopher Benson
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old African American, Emmett Till, was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two White men and brutally murdered. His crime: allegedly whistling at a White woman in a convenience store. The killers were eventually acquitted.
By: Mamie Till-Mobley, and others
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Ghost Dogs
- On Killers and Kin
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Ghost Dogs, Dubus’s nonfiction prowess is on full display in his retelling of his own successes, failures, triumphs, and pain. In his longest essay, “If I Owned a Gun,” Dubus reflects on the empowerment and shame he felt in keeping a gun, and his decision, ultimately, to give it up. Elsewhere, he writes of a violent youth and of settled domesticity and fatherhood, about the omnipresent expectations and contradictions of masculinity, about the things writers remember and those they forget.
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boring
- By Anthony on 11-16-24
By: Andre Dubus III
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Emmett Till
- The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement
- By: Devery S. Anderson
- Narrated by: Brandon Church
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Emmett Till offers the first truly comprehensive account of the 1955 murder and its aftermath. It tells the story of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the Mississippi Delta. His death and the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury set off a firestorm of protests that reverberated all over the world and spurred on the civil rights movement.
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An important story narrated with power and warmth
- By R. Nance on 10-04-16
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Mississippi Mud
- Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia
- By: Edward Humes
- Narrated by: Alex Paul
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Biloxi, Mississippi: After the fatal shooting of one of the city’s most prominent couples - Vincent Sherry was a circuit court judge; his wife, Margaret, was running for mayor - their grief-stricken daughter came home to uncover the truth behind the crime that shocked a community and to follow leads that police seemed unable or unwilling to pursue. What Lynne Sposito soon discovered were bizarre connections to the Dixie Mafia, a predatory band of criminals who ran The Strip, Biloxi’s beachfront hub of sex, drugs, and sleaze.
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Good Book, Terrible Narration
- By JustS on 09-26-14
By: Edward Humes
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We Keep the Dead Close
- A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence
- By: Becky Cooper
- Narrated by: Becky Cooper
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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1969: the height of counterculture and the year universities would seek to curb the unruly spectacle of student protest; the winter that Harvard University would begin the tumultuous process of merging with Radcliffe, its all-female sister school; and the year that Jane Britton, an ambitious 23-year-old graduate student in Harvard's Anthropology Department and daughter of Radcliffe Vice President J. Boyd Britton, would be found bludgeoned to death in her Cambridge, Massachusetts apartment.
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Needs a great editor
- By Leslie G. on 11-13-20
By: Becky Cooper
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The Devil at His Elbow
- Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty
- By: Valerie Bauerlein
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed, Valerie Bauerlein
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Power, privilege, and blood—this is the definitive and thrilling true story of Alex Murdaugh’s violent downfall, from a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter who has become an authority on the case. Through masterful research and cinematic writing, The Devil at His Elbow is a transporting journey through Alex’s life, the night of the murders, and the investigation that culminated in a trial that held tens of millions spellbound. With her stunning insights and fearless instinct for the truth, Bauerlein uncovers layers of the Murdaugh murder case that have not been told.
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Poisoned by woke
- By Amazon Customer on 12-20-24
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Starkweather
- The Untold Story of the Killing Spree That Changed America
- By: Harry N. MacLean
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 21, 1958, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather changed the course of crime in the United States when he murdered the parents and sister of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend (and possible accomplice), Caril Ann Fugate, in a house on the edge of Lincoln, Nebraska. They then drove to the nearby town of Bennet, where a farmer was robbed and killed. When Starkweather’s car broke down, the teenagers who stopped to help were murdered and jammed into a storm cellar. By the time the dust settled, ten innocent people were dead and the city of Lincoln was in a state of terror.
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solid
- By Patrick on 11-30-23
By: Harry N. MacLean
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The Case of Constance Kent
- By: John Rhode
- Narrated by: Graham Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning of 30 June 1860, young Francis Saville Kent, not yet four years old, was found to be missing from the family home, Road Hill House, in the village of Road in Wiltshire. A search was mounted, and the child’s body was soon found, wrapped in a blanket from his cot and stuffed into a privy in the grounds of the house. His throat had been cut to the bone by some sharp instrument.
By: John Rhode
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The Fact of a Body
- A Murder and a Memoir
- By: Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
- Narrated by: Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Before Alex Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, they think their position is clear. The child of two lawyers, Alex is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as Alex reviews old tapes—the moment they hear him speak of his crimes—they are overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by their reaction, Alex digs deeper and deeper into the case.
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Memoir of Molestation
- By Margaret on 05-22-17
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The Blood of Emmett Till
- By: Timothy B. Tyson
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Mississippi, 1955: 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by a white mob after making flirtatious remarks to a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. Till's attackers were never convicted, but his lynching became one of the most notorious hate crimes in American history. It launched protests across the country, helped the NAACP gain thousands of members, and inspired famous activists like Rosa Parks to stand up and fight for equal rights for the first time.
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Tough read. Rest in Peace Emmit. We are so sorry!
- By Melanie B on 09-16-18
By: Timothy B. Tyson
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The Devil Behind the Badge
- The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer
- By: Rick Jervis
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz were four marginalized women striving to make ends meet as sex workers. They looked out for one another. But they would soon share a connection that none of them could have imagined. When Melissa was found dead, the other three women were on edge but assumed they were safe. Twelve days later, they too were dead and police had detained an unlikely suspect—Juan David Ortiz, a ten-year veteran of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
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Well researched
- By Tiffany on 10-07-24
By: Rick Jervis
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A Hunger to Kill
- A Serial Killer, a Determined Detective, and the Quest for a Confession That Changed a Small Town Forever
- By: Kim Mager, Lisa Pulitzer - contributor
- Narrated by: Jennifer Blom
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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On September 13, 2016, in the small town of Ashland, Ohio, emergency dispatchers received a 911 call from a terrified woman who claimed to be kidnapped. The man holding her hostage was Shawn Grate, a serial killer whom the press later dubbed “The Ladykiller.” A key to his conviction and death sentence were Grate’s extensive recorded confessions—all extracted by one woman: Detective Kim Mager.
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Turned into a sermon.
- By Victor Naranjo on 01-29-25
By: Kim Mager, and others
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The Most Southern Place on Earth
- The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity
- By: James C. Cobb
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 20 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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This crescent of bottomlands between Memphis and Vicksburg, lined by the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, remains in some ways what it was in 1860: a land of rich soil, wealthy planters, and desperate poverty - the blackest and poorest counties in all the South. And yet it is a cultural treasure house as well - the home of Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Charley Pride, Walker Percy, Elizabeth Spencer, and Shelby Foote.
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Focused entirely on Racism
- By Niki Himmer on 04-09-24
By: James C. Cobb
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Promise
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
- Narrated by: Imani Parks
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Kindred sisters—Ezra and Cinthy—have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs. But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way.
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Powerful!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-14-23
What listeners say about The Barn
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- Patrick Weems
- 09-27-24
Increíble.
Hands down the best book on Emmett Till, Mississippi and race in America. I highly recommend.
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- BG
- 10-04-24
Very sad story
I am truly shocked at the cold, cruel actions these grown men took against this child, Emmit Till. This poor, innocent child did not deserve in any, way, shape, or form this kind of horrible, horrific, tragic treatment. Regardless of skin color, no one deserves to have their life taken in such an inhumane manner. I am sickened by the actions that these men and women. This should never have happened and I pray never happens again.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-16-24
Fascinatingly detailed telling
Wright Thompson does an extraordinary job of telling the Emmett Till story in The Barn. I had never heard of Emmett Till before listening to Mr Thompson read his boom to me. I felt, as I listened, as though I were a spectator to this story taking place in 1955. The details used by the author transports the listener to the delta in Mississippi as though the story was happening for the first time.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-14-25
Our His Story is our story
The illustration that this story of a murder of a young boy was the story of this country. Our history is intertwined with Emmett’s story. He is us and we are him.
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- Megan Redwine
- 12-15-24
Excellent. Horrifying. True. Necessary.
We all need to hear these words. So we can see what we have done and what we still need to do.
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- Taylor
- 01-24-25
The aligning of so many important dates throughout history.
This is an excellent book! I’ve known the story of Emmett Till, but never with such detail. The writer did a great job of paralleling other significant historical moments with everything that happened surrounding the murder of Emmett Till! Learning about it this way gives the reader a better understanding of the surrounding factors that allowed for this murder to be covered up.
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- John Mayloo
- 01-31-25
So interesting
Honestly, I wish I actually read vs listened to this book. There were soooo many details, facts, figures and people’s names. I know I missed so much, but regardless, it was a fascinating and heartbreaking book.
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- Phatfoxy
- 02-14-25
The history of Mississippi..The history of Emmett
I loved the entire book..I especially loved the author finding the truth that transformed his soul and opened his eyes as a young man....and being brave enough to tell it.
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- Shannon A.
- 03-30-25
An Event I Never Knew About Until Now
In some ways, this book confirmed my thoughts that what I was taught during my school years (70s-80s) left so many significant events out. It triggers my views today on education and access to books. And while I see some very small progress with respect to racism and discrimination at times, it makes me angry, sad and frustrated at where we are still today. I’m sorry for the many generations negatively impacted by the horrible times when own my ancestors acted as God deciding the white race was somehow supreme. I appreciate the authors presentation of research and facts that were wrongly destroyed and buried. I am humbled by the author’s accountability and purpose to make this story available for all to know the truth. In some ways, the karma that followed many of the perpetrators provides some shameful delightful feeling but in reality it wasn’t strong enough punishment for the crimes and horrors they committed.
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- Lisa C
- 10-29-24
A must read, lest we repeat our past
Like the author, I didn't know what I didn't know (as all public school educated kids were unaware how recent Brown v BOE was, and that the "before Brown times" were a long era bordering on epoch. This was 1970 America and there were just thenaround 5 girls and boys in my class.
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