Nearly 70 years ago, 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally tortured, murdered and disposed of in a river after whistling at a white woman outside a store in segregated Mississippi. The widely publicized murder sent shockwaves across the country, exposing the extent of America’s racial violence and helping catalyze the Civil Rights Movement.
Amid national attention, the words of Till’s grieving mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, cut through to the public. After Till’s mutilated body was retrieved from the Tallahatchie River, Till-Mobley insisted on an open casket for her late son’s funeral, saying “Let the world see what they did to my boy.”
Till’s story and the lasting impact of his mother’s words have inspired the newest exhibit at Cincinnati’s National Underground Railroad Freedom Center titled “Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See.”
“Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See” opens at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center on Jan. 10.
Opening Jan. 10 at the Freedom Center, located at 50 E. Freedom Way, the exhibit spotlights the 1955 incident in an effort to show the work that still needs to be done in the fight against racial injustice, the center stated in a press release. Featured in the new exhibit is a bullet-riddled, vandalized historical marker to commemorate the tragedy while underscoring its lasting implications today.
“The story of Emmett Till is heartbreaking and disturbing, laying bare the vicious cost of racism in our country,” Freedom Center President and COO Woodrow Keown Jr. said in a press release “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,” Keown added.
“Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See” opens at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center on Jan. 10.
The Freedom Center has honored the legacies of heroes from the Underground Railroad since its opening in 2004. Symbolically located on the banks of the Ohio River, where many enslaved people sought freedom in the mid-1800s, the Freedom Center shares their stories through immersive exhibits, programming and films that examine issues of freedom, systemic racism, implicit bias and modern day enslavement.
Where to buy tickets
Admission to “Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See” is included in the Freedom Center’s general admission. Tickets to the museum can be purchased at freedomcenter.org.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Emmett Till exhibit coming to Cincinnati’s Freedom Center