MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An upcoming virtual event plans to highlight what would’ve been Emmett Till’s 80th birthday, as well as the push to keep his memory alive.
This Sunday should have been Emmett Till’s 80th birthday. But in 1955, the 14-year-old was brutally murdered by white men while visiting family in the Mississippi Delta.
Next week, there will be a virtual panel recognizing what should’ve been Till’s birthday, along with the current work to create an Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Historic Park in Chicago and the Mississippi Delta.
Tiffany Tolbert is associate director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She will moderate next week’s panel.
“It’s important to preserve these sites so that people understand the relevancy that these events still have in how we live today and what is still occurring in our country,” Tolbert said.
Till’s tragic story was kept alive by his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. She made the decision to have her son’s funeral be open casket in his hometown of Chicago. She wanted the world to see the torture he endured.
“And so for her to make that decision during a time of immense grief took strength and it took courage, and just over the course of those three days hundreds of thousands of people saw what occurred when others attempted to bury that story both literally and figuratively so that no one would know what occurred in Mississippi,” Tolbert said.
She also traveled to Mississippi during the trial.
“Going into a very hostile area of the country for that reason, immense courage and then to continue that for decades past to see if justice could occur as well as that her son was not killed in vain,” Tolbert said.
The virtual event will be held in conjunction with the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and will have a list of speakers, including the wife of Till’s cousin.
The event will take place on Thursday, July 29th at 12p.m. You can click here to register for free.
