including its after math, that made violence against the descendants of slaves literally routine in places like mississippi. but you can't understand that, before the lynching of emmett till without understanding the history and brutal legacy of american slavery. what it did not just to black people but also the ways in which it warped white society. the conceit that enslaved people developed skills while in captivity suggests that black people arrived in this country as uncivilized savages without value or humanity, and without slavery, they would have been nothing. it reframes slavery as an act of mercy, suggesting that african people were civilized by the people who kidnapped them, raped them, subjected them to forced breeding, and sold their children like cattle, and whose sons and grandsons were given a literal license to kill children like emmett till, as the wages of being white. joining me now is brent legs, executive director of the