“Let the people see what they did to my boy.”
Mamie Till (later Till-Mobley), mother of Emmett Till.
Accused of whistling at a white woman, 14-year-old Emmett was kidnapped, tortured and killed by the cashier's husband and brother-in-law in Mississippi, 1955.
Later revealing that the local sheriff had attempted to cover up the brutality of the murder, Mamie insisted not only that she see the body for herself, but that there was a public funeral in the family's hometown of Chicago. Attended by thousands, an image of the open casket circulated around the globe, forcing the US to confront the unspeakable violence inflicted on her son.
In a new Picturing Black History article, Sierra Phillips details this extraordinary act of courage, its reach and its influence on the civil rights movement. Follow our bio link to read A Mother's Power.
An ongoing collaborative effort between @originsosu and @gettyarchive, Picturing Black History seeks to uncover untold stories and rarely seen images of the Black experience, providing new context around culturally-significant moments by bringing them into the light and into view.
📷: Bettmann/Getty Images | 1955 | #GettyImages#PreservingThePast#GettyArchive
#historyphoto#historyphotographed#civilrights#emmetttill#mamietill#blacklivesmatter#picturingblackhistory#blackhistory#UShistory#americanhistory#bettmannarchive