{"id":14425,"date":"2025-02-20T15:33:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T15:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=14425"},"modified":"2025-02-20T15:33:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T15:33:33","slug":"acknowledgments-wright-thompson-the-barn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2025\/02\/20\/acknowledgments-wright-thompson-the-barn\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the acknowledgments: The making of Wright Thompson\u2019s ‘The Barn’"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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The title and subtitle of Wright Thompson\u2019s “The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi”<\/a> lay down a marker of its audacity. It\u2019s a work of true crime that, in fact, is a story of land, of global commerce and capitalism, of the Delta blues. Of course, one of the most infamous murders in American history \u2014 the lynching of a 14-year-old Black child, Emmett Till \u2014 looms over the book. It\u2019s an event of overwhelming notoriety and tectonic consequence.

Bluntly, “The Barn,” which sprang out of a story, \u201cHis Name Was Emmett Till,\u201d<\/a> published in The Atlantic in 2021, is the best nonfiction I\u2019ve read in years \u2014 maybe ever. And as a writer myself<\/a>, I am naturally jealous, but also curious. How did Thompson do it? The endnotes of a work of nonfiction provide something of a roadmap: a chronicle of archives, newspapers, and interviewees. But there\u2019s another, less scrutinized repository of clues to a book\u2019s assembly, one decidedly more opaque: acknowledgments.

That is where one encounters the beating heart of the book\u2019s journey to publication. For Thompson, that journey was writing in the Smoky Mountains, on a trip to Dollywood, on Christmas morning. \u201cIt just was a constant thing,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI’m just grateful to a lot of people who were patient at dinners while I talked.\u201d

Acknowledgments are a unique window on the writing process. Thompson walked me through who made the cut and why.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Gloria Dickerson, director of Emmett Till Academy<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Dickerson is one of the central characters in the book. In 1965, at age 12, she integrated the all-white schools of Drew, Mississippi, where Till was murdered.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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In some ways, she is the heartbeat of this thing. Gloria said to me at some point, It’s important that people understand the history of this one building, because it explains why the Delta is like it is.<\/em> And to me, that emerging up from the community of Drew<\/a> felt like, Oh, this is not a history lesson<\/em>. This is a book that all exists in present tense, regardless of the date on it. I felt like that was just essential. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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