Emmett Till Home

On January 27th, 2021, the City of Chicago Council granted Landmark Status to 6427 S. St. Lawrence Ave., which was the home of Mamie Till-Mobley and her son Emmett at the time of Emmett’s murder in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955.

Fourteen Year Old Emmett Till was murdered in August 1955 while visiting relatives in Mississippi, after being accused of offending a white woman. A few days later, the women’s husband and others from the town kidnapped Emmett Till from his uncle’s home and proceeded to brutually beat him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. When his body was returned to Chicago, his mother chose to have an open casket to expose the horrors of racism.

The story of Emmett Till is one of the most important of the last half of the 20th century. And an important element was the casket ... It is an object that allows us to tell the story, to feel the pain and understand loss. I want people to feel like I did. I want people to feel the complexity of emotions.

—Lonnie Bunch III, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture