The Love and Pain of Mamie Till-Mobley
Mamie Till-Mobley adamantly refused to let her son go to Money, Mississippi, repeatedly denying his request. However, in the summer of 1955, Emmett, affectionately known as Bobo, had just turned 14, and he wanted to join his cousins on their trip to visit their uncle in the south. After much convincing, Mamie finally relented, but with strict conditions. She warned Emmett about the unspoken rules that existed in Mississippi, rules that were foreign to him as a Chicago native. She instructed him to always follow these rules, such as never speaking to white people unless spoken to and never making eye contact with a white woman walking towards him.
In her autobiography, "Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America," Mamie Till-Mobley reflected on how difficult it was to prepare her son for his trip to Money, Mississippi. She wrote that Emmett had to unlearn everything he had come to believe in his life. Despite agreeing to follow his mother's precautions, Emmett couldn't help but think that she was exaggerating the risks.
Mamie's concerns were not unfounded. According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), between 1877 and 1950, over 4,000 lynchings occurred in the United States, with the majority taking place in the South. While Illinois, where Emmett lived, recorded 56 lynchings during that same time period, Mississippi was infamous for being a hotbed of hate crimes. In fact, Mississippi had the highest number of Black victims lynched, with over 600 recorded. Despite these shocking statistics, Mamie found it difficult to convey the true dangers of the South to her son.
Emmett Till's mother, Mamie, possessed a unique understanding of the American South, unlike her son. Born Mamie Carthan in 1921, she spent the early years of her life in Webb, Mississippi, a mere two miles from Sumner, the town where her son's trial would take place more than three decades later. However, when she was only two, her family migrated to Chicago, joining the millions of Black Americans who left the South during the Great Migration, between the 1910s and 1970s. Mamie witnessed the migration of her own family members to the North and observed how they adapted to a new way of life. Despite moving away, Mamie's connection to her Southern roots remained strong, and she would often spend summers visiting family in Mississippi. Her dedication to her studies led to her becoming the fourth Black student to graduate from Argo Community High School.
Emmett's trip to Mississippi took a tragic turn when he was accused of whistling at a white woman named Carolyn Bryant in a grocery store. Carolyn's husband and brother-in-law, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, then abducted Emmett from his great-uncle's house, brutally beat him, killed him, and threw his body into the Tallahatchie River. In the days that followed, Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett's mother, was left in the dark about her son's whereabouts. Her family, gathered at her mother's house in Chicago, tried to contact someone in Mississippi but couldn't reach anyone. They turned to the Chicago newspapers for help, and reporters came to the house to hear what Mamie knew. In her autobiography, Mamie remembered feeling helpless as she watched her mother's hope fade away. Her mother had grown up in Mississippi and knew all too well what it meant when white men showed up in the middle of the night.
August 31, 1955, marked the devastating discovery of Emmett's body in the Tallahatchie River. Mamie's determination did not waver as she continued to fight for justice even after her son's death. She fiercely advocated for his body to be returned to Chicago instead of being buried in Mississippi, and she also had to battle to view his body. To her dismay, the local sheriff's office returned the casket with the condition that it should never be opened. However, Mamie refused to look away from the brutality inflicted upon her son, and her unwavering insistence on confronting the horrific truth of Emmett's death is what made her story so remarkable.
Mamie's refusal to hide the gruesome nature of Emmett's murder is the reason why his name became a catalyst for change. In fact, on September 3, she hosted an open-casket funeral for her son, wearing a suit she had bought him for Christmas, but leaving his appearance unaltered. She carefully chose several pictures of Emmett from that same Christmas to display inside the open casket, despite Mississippi officials' attempts to stop her. This decision meant that anyone who wished to bear witness to the brutality inflicted upon Emmett could do so.
The impact of Emmett’s open-casket funeral was enormous, drawing tens of thousands of mourners to Chicago’s Roberts Temple Church of God. While the crowds outside were solemn, inside was a different story. As people passed by Emmett’s casket, covered with a sheet of glass, their reactions were raw and emotional. Some fainted while others needed assistance to leave the building, shaken to their core by the brutal reality of what had been done to the young boy.
In the weeks following the funeral, Mamie traveled to Mississippi to testify against her son’s murderers, going against her own mother’s wishes. Emmett’s great-uncle, Moses Wright, also testified, identifying Bryant and Milam as the men who had come to his door in the middle of the night. Wright ultimately left Mississippi, feeling unsafe to remain there any longer.
On September 23, 1955, a jury consisting entirely of white men acquitted the murderers after only 67 minutes of deliberation. The verdict was not surprising given the pervasive racism of the time. However, in a January 1956 interview with Look magazine, for which they were paid, both men admitted to the crime without fear of prosecution.
Mamie Carthan married Louis Till in the fall of 1940, and their son Emmett was born the following summer. However, the couple separated soon after, leaving Mamie to raise her son alone. Despite the challenges, Mamie worked long hours to provide for her family, and Emmett took on the household chores. According to Mamie's memoir, this experience instilled in Emmett a sense of pride, confidence, and self-assuredness.
"Mamie Till refused to let her son die in vain," says Tafeni English, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Civil Rights Memorial Center. "Her courage ensured that we will never forget Emmett, while also inspiring us to continue fighting for justice for him and countless others."
Mamie passed away on January 6, 2003, almost 50 years after Emmett's death. She is buried alongside her son at Burr Oak Cemetery in the Chicago area, where her grave marker reads, "Her pain united a nation."
Written By: Alice.in.Londini.land
