Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument

04/08/2024

A virtual version of Reckoning with Remembrance is available at https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/reckoning-with-remembrance/online

Tomorrow, the National Museum of American History will re-open Reckoning with Remembrance: History, Injustice and the Murder of Emmett Till in the Changing Exhibition Gallery on the east wing of the 2nd floor. The single-object exhibition features a 2008 historical marker commemorating Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy brutally lynched in Mississippi in the summer of 1955. This marker was part of a series that the Emmett Till Memorial Commission placed around Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. The marker, defaced by a stunning 317 bullet holes, exposes the ways Black history is violently contested. This was not a single act of vandalism. Rather, over the past 15 years, signs commemorating Till were repeatedly shot, defaced with acid, and thrown in a river. The continued assaults were intended to terrorize the Black community and signaled that Black history would not be tolerated.

In the face of violent opposition to their work and decades of silence by the state, citizens in the Mississippi Delta continue to commemorate Emmett Till and share his story. This exhibit, co-curated with the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, uses a single object to reveal a robust history of community activism and share their critical insight: history is a tool for justice and exclusion from history costs lives.

The re-opened exhibition will include atmospheric footage of the Tallahatchie River where Emmett’s battered body was drawn from the river and a reflection from Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., Emmett’s close friend and cousin, on the nation’s resistance to contend with anti-Black violence.

Reckoning with Remembrance: History, Injustice and the Murder of Emmett Till will be on view through September 15, 2024

01/24/2024

On this day in 1956, less than 4 months after J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were acquitted of the murder of young Emmett Till, 𝐿𝑜𝑜𝑘 Magazine published a confession from the two men titled, "The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi."

In the article, Milam and Bryant bragged about abducting, beating, and killing 15-year-old Emmett Till in the early morning hours of August 28, 1955. The confessions, stripped of any remorse, gave readers a disturbing look into the deeply entrenched racism of that era.

𝐿𝑜𝑜𝑘 Magazine journalist, William Bradford Huie, paid Milam and Bryant $3,150 for their confessions and required them to sign release forms. $3,150 in 1955 would be the equivalent of over $30,000 today. Since its publication, the article has largely controlled the public memory of Emmett Till's murder, obscuring the real details of what happened on that fateful night. Details of the published confession have since been called into question; such as whether Bryant and Milam were the only ones involved in the lynching - both men were protected from future prosecution by double jeopardy, but other co-conspirators would not have that protection.

While flawed, the article brought further attention to the brazen racism that led to the murder of Emmett Till, and fueled the flames of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, becoming a rallying cry for equality.

NPS Photo/Jay D. Johnson

01/12/2024

Mamie Till Mobley was laid to rest on this week in 2003, she lived to see major advancements in civil liberties. Those changes in liberties were in part ignited by her brave but painful decision to show the world the mutilated body of her son, Emmett. While nothing would ever replace her son, the changes began to replace injustice. A few of the milestones she must have celebrated were:

▪️ December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man and prompted a year-long bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.

▪️ September 9, 1957: Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to help protect voter rights.

▪️ February 1, 1960: In Greensboro, North Carolina, four Black college students refuse to leave a “whites only” lunch counter and inspire nationwide “Sit-ins”.

▪️ August 28, 1963: A quarter of a million people took part in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King gives his “I Have A Dream” speech.

▪️ 1964-1968: President Johnson signed several legal acts intended to eliminate discrimination.

Learn more about the Civil Rights movement at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/modern-civil-rights-movement.htm

📷Image: Mamie Till-Mobley's gravestone. NPS Photo