Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument

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Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
Tallahatchie County Mississippi Courthouse.jpg
Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse, the site of the September 1955 trial and acquittal
Location Tallahatchie County, Mississippi
and Chicago, Illinois
Coordinates 33°51′38″N90°16′29″W / 33.86056°N 90.27472°W / 33.86056; -90.27472
Area5.7 acres (2.3 ha)
Website Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
Designated NMONJuly 25, 2023

The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument is a United States national monument that honors Emmett Till, an African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14, and his mother, Mamie Till, who became an advocate in the Civil Rights Movement. The monument includes three sites, one in Illinois and two in Mississippi, with a total area of 5.7 acres (2.3 ha). [1] [2] [3] The monument is managed by the National Park Service. It was established by President Joe Biden on July 25, 2023, what would have been Emmett Till's 82nd birthday.

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Illinois

Mississippi

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Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tallahatchie County, Mississippi</span> County in Mississippi, United States

Tallahatchie County is a county in the U.S. state of Mississippi. At the 2020 census, the population was 12,715. Its county seats are Charleston and Sumner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leflore County, Mississippi</span> County in Mississippi, United States

Leflore County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,339. The county seat is Greenwood. The county is named for Choctaw leader Greenwood LeFlore, who signed a treaty to cede his people's land to the United States in exchange for land in Indian Territory. LeFlore stayed in Mississippi, settling on land reserved for him in Tallahatchie County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumner, Mississippi</span> Town in Mississippi, United States

Sumner is a town in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. The population was 407 at the 2000 census. Sumner is one of the two county seats of Tallahatchie County. It is located on the west side of the county and the Tallahatchie River, which runs through the county north–south. The other county seat is Charleston, located east of the river. Charleston was the first county seat, as settlement came from the east, and it is the larger of the two towns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Webb, Mississippi</span> Town in Mississippi, United States

Webb is a town in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. The population was 565 at the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmett Till</span> African American lynching victim (1941–1955)

Emmett Louis Till was an African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.

Keith Beauchamp is an American filmmaker based in Brooklyn and best known for his extensive investigation of and films about the lynching of Emmett Till.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Money, Mississippi</span> Unincorporated community in Mississippi, United States

Money is an unincorporated community near Greenwood in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta. It has fewer than 100 residents, down from 400 in the early 1950s when a cotton mill operated there. Money is located on a railroad line along the Tallahatchie River, a tributary of the Yazoo River in the eastern part of the Mississippi Delta. The community has ZIP code 38945 in the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area.

The State of Mississippi and the Face of Emmett Till is a 2003 play written by David Barr and Mamie Till Mobley. The show chronicles the life and brutal death of Emmett Till, and the circumstances that surrounded his murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Till</span> American soldier, father of Emmett Till

Louis Till was an African American GI during World War II. After enlisting in the United States Army following trial for domestic violence against his estranged wife Mamie Till, and having chosen military service over jail time, Till was court-martialed on two counts of rape and one count of murder during the Italian Campaign. He was found guilty and was executed by hanging at Aversa. Till was the estranged father of Emmett Till, whose murder in August 1955 at the age of 14 galvanized the civil rights movement. The circumstances of Till's death remained largely unknown until they were revealed after the highly controversial acquittal of his son's murderers ten years later. Till's guilt would be called into question many years later via an analysis by John Edgar Wideman. In a book documenting every court martial and execution of GIs in North Africa and Europe during World War II, United States Army Colonel French MacLean called Wideman's research and conclusions into question. According to Colonel MacLean, even though justice was not done to Emmett Till's murderers, the documents kept on the case by Judge Advocate General's Corps suggest that justice was in fact done to Till.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamie Till</span> American schoolteacher and mother of Emmett Till

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley was an American educator and activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old teenager murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, after accusations that he had whistled at a Caucasian grocery store cashier named Carolyn Bryant. For Emmett's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."

The Murder of Emmett Till is a 2003 documentary film produced by Firelight Media that aired on the PBS program American Experience. The film chronicles the story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. He was brutally murdered by two white men after a white woman falsely claimed that he had whistled at and groped her.

Willie Louis was a witness to the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. Till was an African-American child from Chicago who was murdered in 1955 after he had reportedly whistled at a white woman in a Money, Mississippi, grocery store. Till's murder was a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement. Louis testified in court about what he had seen, but an all-white jury found the men not guilty. Fearing for his life, Louis moved to Chicago after the trial and changed his name from Willie Reed to Willie Louis. He was interviewed in 2003 for the PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till and was interviewed the next year on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tallahatchie County Courthouse</span> United States historic place

The Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse is located in Sumner, Mississippi, in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. The county courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 6, 2007. It is located at 108 Main Street. The two-story brick courthouse building was constructed in 1910 in a Richardsonian Romanesque architecture style with a four-story tower on one corner. It was the site of the September 1955 Emmett Till murder trial. It has been restored to its appearance at the time of the trial, "to house a museum dedicated to the memory of the events surrounding Emmett Till's murder and trial. The project was expanded to focus on all the sites associated with the events. A driving tour has been developed and marked." As of 2018 there is no museum in the Courthouse.

The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.

<i>Emmett Till: How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back</i> 2012 painting by Lisa Whittington

Emmett Till: How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back is a painting completed by African-American artist, Lisa Whittington, in 2012. The painting is a portrait of a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till. In 1955, he was visiting family in Money, Mississippi, from Chicago, when he was kidnapped and lynched by two white men for offending a white woman. Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till, held an open casket funeral, and allowed the media to cover it, as well as the physical appearance of Emmett Till's body. She had said, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby." As of February 2019, Emmett Till: How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back, is displayed at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Mississippi. The original work is mixed media on canvas, and is 24 inches in length by 36 inches in height.

Women of the Movement is an American historical drama miniseries that premiered on ABC on January 6, 2022. Created by Marissa Jo Cerar, the series centers on Mamie Till-Mobley, played by Adrienne Warren, who devoted her life to seeking justice for her murdered son Emmett, played by Cedric Joe. Tonya Pinkins also co-stars as Alma Carthan, Emmett's grandmother.

"Mississippi–1955" or "Mississippi" is a poem written by Langston Hughes in response to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Hughes was the first major African American writer to pen a response to the killing, and his poem was widely republished in the weeks that followed. It was initially dedicated to Emmett Till, but did not mention him specifically. Hughes republished the poem in 1965 and 1967, revising it in a way that decreased its specific applicability to Till.

<i>Till</i> (film) 2022 film by Chinonye Chukwu

Till is a 2022 biographical drama film directed by Chinonye Chukwu and written by Michael Reilly, Keith Beauchamp, and Chukwu, and produced by Beauchamp, Reilly, and Whoopi Goldberg. It is based on the true story of Mamie Till-Bradley, an educator and activist who pursued justice after the murder of her 14-year-old son Emmett in August 1955. The film stars Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie and Jalyn Hall as Emmett. Kevin Carroll, Frankie Faison, Haley Bennett, Jayme Lawson, Tosin Cole, Sean Patrick Thomas, John Douglas Thompson, Roger Guenveur Smith, and Goldberg also appear in supporting roles.

Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ is a Christian house of worship located in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The church was the site of Emmett Till's open-casket funeral in 1955.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "A Proclamation on Establishment of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument". The White House. July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Biden will establish a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teen lynched in Mississippi". The Independent . July 23, 2023. Archived from the original on July 23, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023.
  3. Betts, Anna (July 23, 2023). "Biden to Name National Monument for Emmett Till and His Mother". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 24, 2023.