A new exhibition at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center tells the tragic story of Emmett Till’s death and his mother’s unwavering fight to ensure his death was not in vain.
“Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See” opens on Jan. 10, 2025, at the downtown Cincinnati museum. The exhibit focuses on the events leading up to and following the brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, which took place during his trip to Money, Mississippi in 1955.
Emmett, a boy from Chicago, was abducted, tortured and brutally murdered for whistling at a white woman outside a store in the heavily segregated South. Days later, his mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River and sent back to his hometown, where his grieving mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, waited.
A centerpiece of the exhibition is a bullet-riddled, vandalized historical marker that both commemorates a tragedy and illustrates the ongoing problem of racism.
The highly publicized killing sparked the Civil Rights Movement in America. The organizers of the 1963 March on Washington chose Aug. 28 to honor the anniversary of Emmett’s murder. But the most powerful response came from Emmett’s mother, said Woodrow Keown, Jr., president and COO of the Freedom Center.
Insisting on an open casket for her child, Mamie Till-Mobley said, “Let the world see what they did to my boy.”
Her words put a face to the brutal toll of racial hatred and violence in America, Keown said. He described the exhibition as a call to action for everyone to make a difference for justice in their own community.
“The story of Emmett Till is heartbreaking and disturbing, revealing the vicious cost of racism in our country,” Keown said.
“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,” he continued. “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.”
The exhibit is a collaboration between the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute, and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center.
Support for the exhibition came from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Maddox Foundation, the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior.
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