Roberts Temple Church of God, 4021 S State Street

Watch the video of Eyes on the Prize from 11:20 to 17:40.

PLAY VIDEO

In August of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till of Chicago was visiting his great-uncle in Money, Mississippi. He was accused of flirting with a white woman in a grocery store and was subsequently killed and his body was found in the Tallahatchie River. He had been beaten and shot in the head by the woman’s husband and brother-in-law and his body had been in the river for 3 days.

His mother, Mamie Till, made the incredibly bold decision that her son’s funeral to be an open casket because she "wanted the world to see what they did to [her] baby" at the Roberts Temple Church of God. Photos of Till’s body were published in both Jet Magazine and the Chicago Defender newspaper and are considered to have been a catalytic moment in the Civil Rights Movement. People were generally outraged that not even a child would be safe from the horrors of lynching.

Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, were both acquitted by an all-white jury of the kidnapping and murder. Less than a year later, they admitted in an interview to Look magazine that they had killed Emmett Till. In 2008, Carolyn Bryant (Till’s accuser) gave an interview admitting that she hadn’t been truthful when she said that he had in any way threatened her.

Following the funeral and trial, Mamie Till went on to speak and raise funds for the NAACP. She continued to be an activist in the field of education for the 40 years following Emmett Till’s murder.

sources:

1. Emmett Till." Wikipedia. April 28, 2018. Accessed April 29, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till.

2. "Mamie Till." Wikipedia. April 25, 2018. Accessed April 29, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamie_Till.

3. “Eyes On The Prize - (Part 1) Awakenings 1954–1956." YouTube. April 13, 2016. Accessed April 21, 2018. https://youtu.be/Ts10IVzUDVw.