Rev. Parker offers an emotional and suspenseful page-turner, set against a backdrop of reporting errors and manipulations, racial reckoning, and political pushback—and he does so accompanied by never-before-seen findings in the investigation, the soft resurrection of memory, and the battle-tested courage of faith. A Few Days Full of Trouble is a gift to readers looking to reconcile the weight of the past with a hope for the future.
Jon Meacham, author of And There Was Light, says, “The murder of Emmett Till is an inflection point in the story of America–a moment of particular and of universal significance. In this moving and important book, the Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. and Christopher Benson give us a unique window onto the anguished search for justice in a case whose implications shape us still. A vital and absorbing book.”
More About the Authors: Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr. is pastor and district superintendent of the Argo Temple Church of God in Christ in Summit, Illinois, the church built by Alma Carthan, grandmother of Emmett Till. A sought-after public speaker, Rev. Parker lectures and teaches on the history of the struggle for equal justice in America. He has enjoyed more than fifty years of marriage to his wife, Dr. Marvel Parker.
Christopher Benson is an award-winning lawyer, journalist, and associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He co-authored, with the late Mamie Till-Mobley, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated, Robert F. Kennedy Award-winning Death of Innocence. He was Washington Editor of Ebony and has contributed to Chicago magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times, HuffPost, and The Chicago Reporter. He also received two regional Emmys and a Peter Lisagor Award for exemplary journalism for his work on the documentary Paper Trail: 100 Years of The Chicago Defender.