Photo Courtesy of The National Library of Congress
July 25 marked the 80th birthday of Emmett Till, and two Mississippi museums, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History, commemorated him.
According to a Facebook post, both museums hosted a guided tour that highlighted his life.
“As we embark on the birthday of our beloved Emmett Till, let’s reflect on how this young man created a movement of people who wanted more for themselves and their communities,” said Pamela D.C. Junior, director of the Two Mississippi Museums.
“In honor of the day that he was born, July 25, 1941, the Two Mississippi Museums will offer free admission to our visitors to read and to learn more about the life of this fourteen-year-old who was taken from the world too soon,” she added.
According to Star Tribune, Till, a Black boy, was kidnapped, tortured and killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in 1955.
His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, pushed for an open-casket funeral so that people could see her child’s brutalized body, which added fuel to the beginning of the civil rights movement.
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A rally was also organized in Till’s name by the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, which was co-founded by Till’s cousin and Twin Cities resident Deborah Watts, as well as Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence.
”Our mission is to connect the past to the present, to connect the dots between what happened to Emmett Till and what is happening today with police killings,” Watts said.
Till’s case was reopened in 2017, when Bryant, the woman who said Till made sexual advances and whistled at her, told a historian that she lied about the incident.
The foundation is now urging for an update on the case and charges against Donham.
“We wish her to be treated like anyone else who committed a crime,” Watts said. “The past is not the past until justice is served.”