FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 12, 2024
MEDIA CONTACT:
Cody Hefner (513) 608-5777, chefner@nurfc.org
Upcoming exhibition finds ripple of justice in 70-year-old tragedy
Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See opens at the Freedom Center Jan. 10
CINCINNATI – A story of tragedy becomes a spark of hope in a new exhibition coming to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See, produced by the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, tells the troubling story of the murder of young Emmett Till and the powerful ripple for justice that began with his mother’s courageous actions. Through a mother’s bravery and her son’s legacy, the path to healing racial hatred can begin. The exhibition opens at the Freedom Center on January 10, 2025.
EXHIBITION PHOTOS
Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See lifts the stories of a fun-loving child from Chicago whose life was brutally taken by a legacy of racial violence, and a mother’s bravery that refused to let her son die in vain. A centerpiece of the exhibition is a bullet-riddled, vandalized historical marker that both commemorates a tragedy and illustrates the ongoing scourge of racism.
In the summer of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was visiting his uncle in Money, Mississippi. The young boy was abducted, tortured and brutally murdered for whistling at a white woman outside a store in the heavily segregated South. His mutilated body was retrieved from the Tallahatchie River days later, and sent home to Chicago and his grieving mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. The widely publicized murder catalyzed the Civil Rights Movement in America. Rosa Parks said, “I thought about Emmett Till, and I couldn’t go back.” The organizers of the March on Washington in 1963 selected August 28 in honor of the date that Emmett Till was murdered.
But the most powerful response came from his mother. Insisting on an open casket for her child, Mamie Till-Mobley said, “Let the world see what they did to my boy.” The heart-wrenching words put a face to the brutal toll of racial hatred and violence in America.
“The story of Emmett Till is heartbreaking and disturbing, laying bare the vicious cost of racism in our country,” said Woodrow Keown, Jr., president and COO of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. “His mother knew that and refused to let her darling boy die in vain. She endured the pain so that no other mother would have to suffer the loss of her child. As mothers still grieve the cost of racial violence, we’re hopeful that this exhibition about Emmett’s legacy and Mamie’s courage may give us pause to reflect, to rectify and to heal.”
Critically, the exhibition serves as a call to action to make a ripple for justice in your own community. Through these stories, Emmett and Mamie Till-Mobley remind us that we have much work to do in the fight against racial injustice and hatred. They also inspire a new generation that will repair past hatred and come together to build a bright future of peace and understanding.
Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See opens at the Freedom Center January 10, 2025.
This project was made possible in part by The National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom, the Maddox Foundation in Hernando, MS, The Institute for Museum and Library Services (MH-249226-OMS-21) and The Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior (15.904).
