The MeatEater Podcast – Episode 763: Landscape and Murder in the Mississippi Delta
Host: Steven Rinella
Guest: Wright Thompson (Author, Journalist)
Release Date: September 15, 2025
Episode Overview
In this richly layered conversation, Steven Rinella welcomes celebrated writer Wright Thompson to discuss his new book, The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi. The episode dives deep into the landscape, history, and cultural dynamics of the Mississippi Delta — centering on the infamous 1955 murder of Emmett Till at a barn that still stands today. Through storytelling and rigorous historical context, they explore how places acquire meaning through layers of human history, agriculture, race, economics, and memory, examining not only the Till case but also the broader architecture of American land, labor, and myth-making.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Introduction to Wright Thompson and His Work
- [02:29] Steven introduces Wright as a renowned sports writer and author who grew up in the Mississippi Delta. Wright’s latest book takes an unconventional look at the Emmett Till murder by closely examining the land where it happened.
- [04:08] Emphasis on the purpose of Wright’s book: not just retelling the murder, but exploring the history of a single patch of ground and its significance.
2. The Power of Place: Interrogating Land and History
- [05:34] Steven and Wright discuss the “deep history” of land—how anyone who is attached to a place (hunters, outdoorspeople, farmers) can uncover layered stories, both tragic and inspiring.
- [07:52] Wright: “Anyone in America who has an attachment to a place…can learn to understand their spot in a deep history sense.”
3. The Emmett Till Murder: Narrative and Consequence
- [14:12 – 22:57] Wright gives a detailed, empathetic account of Emmett Till’s murder:
- Emmett, a 14-year-old from Chicago, was visiting family in Mississippi.
- After a brief, misinterpreted interaction with a white woman at a store, he was abducted, tortured, and murdered by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam.
- The violence was contextualized within post-Brown v. Board racial tension, the collapse of the sharecropping economy, and harsh political rhetoric.
- [17:21] Notable insight: “Being 14 is about testing boundaries and the dominant culture…was about protecting boundaries and those collided.”
- The racial violence had lifelong repercussions for those who tried to seek justice, with witnesses and family members forced to flee the state under threat of death.
4. The History of Land, Agriculture, and the Delta
- [26:32 – 48:24] Thompson traces the transformation of the Mississippi Delta from uninhabitable swamp to man-made cotton factory, driven first by timber companies and later by the agricultural boom.
- The unique American process of parceling land (Land Ordinance of 1785) and how ownership records reveal historical truths (unlike spoken or written narratives, which can lie).
- The transition from hardwood swamp to cotton monoculture, commodification of the land, outside capital, and the inherent violence and exploitation connected with the cotton economy.
- [44:46] Wright: “In some ways it went like 200 feet deep. We call that ice cream soil…millions of years of floods. All those natural processes stopped.”
5. Sharecropping and Its Discontents
- [53:06 – 67:45] An in-depth explanation of the sharecropping system:
- How emancipation forced a labor shift from slavery to sharecropping, itself a deeply exploitative system entwined with credit, land access, and merchant stores owned by plantation owners.
- [66:42] Wright: “You might sell it for [x]…there’s no way you’re checking my books.”
- Both black and poor white families were trapped in the system, with the only escape being rare access to credit, often after generations.
6. Class, Race, and Violence: Economics of the Delta
- [59:14 – 63:47] The intersection of race and class, and their role in the violence of the era.
- Poor whites often had entrenched animosities toward black sharecroppers, manipulated by political and planter class interests.
- Planners (plantation owners) initially resisted the Klan because it scared away vital labor, showing the complexity of race and class relations.
- [59:52] Wright: “The Delta was seen…as a safe space from the Klan because landowners weren’t letting that on their land.”
7. When the Land Dries Up: Economic Collapse and the Great Migration
- [84:09 – 87:11] As cotton prices collapsed and mechanization eliminated jobs, black families left the Delta in large-scale migrations for northern cities like Chicago.
- The murder of Emmett Till became emblematic of a world crumbling under economic and social pressure, with its black population forced into exile.
8. The Curse of the Killers and Community Ostracization
- [32:07; 94:05 – 103:38] After their acquittal, Till’s murderers faced widespread ostracization and various personal tragedies; they became social pariahs in their own community.
- Ostracism paralleled with high-profile cases like O.J. Simpson, where the verdict was a rejection of the broader system rather than a true exoneration.
- [96:55] Steven: “They weren’t deciding if they did it or not. It was something different.”
- [101:41] Wright: “These people were totally ostracized…they couldn’t get crop loans…totally outcast.”
9. The Danger and Complexity of Historical Memory
- [106:37 – 118:21] Critique of how history is erased, sanitized, or weaponized on both local and national levels (e.g., questionable textbook narratives and simplistic historic markers).
- The imperative, for Wright, is not to learn history for guilt, but for truthful stewardship and understanding.
- [107:08] Wright: “I don’t feel guilty… but I do think it is incumbent upon me to know what happened on this land if I’m going to farm it.”
10. Landscape as Living Memory
- [119:11 – 121:04] Discussion of how the past remains palpably present in the Delta — that history, geography, and personal and national tragedy are always layered, never quite distant.
- The past bleeds through: “The places I like best are where the membrane between the present and the past is so thin you can see through it.” – Wright [118:57]
11. “The Barn,” Legacy, and the Responsibility of Memory
- [121:25 – 122:08] The northern migration profoundly connected the Delta to Chicago; the memory of the place lives on in exiled communities.
- [122:10] Wright: “The south side of Chicago is the capital of the Mississippi Delta.”
12. The Lost and Possibly Still-Lost: The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
- [124:04 – 131:25] As a metaphor and real story, the hunt for the presumed-extinct ivory-billed woodpecker is explored — signaling both the loss of the Delta’s wildness and the enduring possibility of mystery.
- [125:11] The species vanished due to habitat destruction (its last tracts cut during WWII), paralleling cultural and ecological loss.
- [129:18] Wright: “There are secrets and there are mysteries that, like the deep ocean, remain unknown and almost unimaginable in their wonder and surprise.”
Notable Quotes & Moments
-
On history and land:
“People lie, but the land does not. The land tells the story.”
– Wright Thompson [23:01] -
On the complexity of the Delta’s transformation:
“The Mississippi Delta was, as you know, a vast, almost uninhabitable hardwood swamp until around 1900. Then they started clearing it and building sort of the last generation of cotton plantations there.”
– Wright Thompson [09:00] -
On sharecropping’s trap:
“The only X in the long variable of an American farm that you have any control over is labor.”
– Wright Thompson [48:24] -
On ostracism post-acquittal:
“They were acquitted, but they were cursed, man.”
– Steven Rinella [32:07] -
On holding dual truths:
“Being Southern means being able to hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time, and some parts of both of them be true.”
– Wright Thompson [73:37] -
On historical knowledge:
“I know an incredible amount about the history of this piece of land, but mostly what I know is the sheer tonnage of what I don’t know.”
– Wright Thompson [117:08]
Timestamps for Key Segments
- 02:29: Wright Thompson introduction and personal history
- 04:08: Why The Barn focuses on one place
- 14:12–22:57: The story of Emmett Till’s murder
- 26:32: The Mississippi Delta’s transformation for agriculture
- 44:46: Topsoil and natural capital of the Delta
- 67:45: Life as a sharecropper and lasting effects
- 84:09: The Great Migration and collapse of the sharecropping system
- 94:05–103:38: The fate and ostracism of the murderers
- 106:37: How the story is retold in modern Mississippi textbooks
- 118:57: “The membrane between the present and the past is so thin you can see through.”
- 124:10: The mystery and metaphor of the ivory-billed woodpecker
Tone & Language
The episode is candid, reflective, and unflinching. Both Steven and Wright speak with respect, precision, and occasional humor about the weighty themes of violence, memory, race, music, and ecology in the American South. Their language remains conversational and direct, punctuated by moments of poetic insight and personal anecdote.
Summary Takeaway
This episode of The MeatEater Podcast offers not just a retelling of Emmett Till’s murder, but a powerful meditation on how the American landscape—its farms, rivers, and barns—remembers, shapes, and sometimes defies the stories hammered onto it. Wright Thompson’s deep-dive into the geology of land and memory encourages listeners to see the places they love with new eyes, accepting the full complexity and consequence of what came before.