Chicago Church Where Emmett Till’s Open-Casket Funeral Was Held Named An Endangered Historic Site

Topline

A Chicago church that went down in American history when it was the backdrop for 14-year-old lynching victim Emmett Till’s famously open-casket funeral has been named one of America’s most endangered historic sites by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Key Facts

Tangent

The National Trust for Historic Preservation releases an annual report on the nation’s most endangered places, and this year, multiple places on the list are linked to Black U.S. history. The Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ was joined on the list by sites like the Sun-n-Sand Motor Hotel, a meeting place for civil rights activists in Jackson, Mississippi and the National Negro Opera Company House in Pittsburgh, home to America’s first Black opera group.

Key Background

Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ was where Till’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley insisted on having an open casket funeral for her murdered son, despite his face being beaten beyond recognition to “let the people see what they did to my boy,” she said. A reported 100,000 people attended the funeral at the church, and graphic images of Till’s open casket were further distributed by Black media outlets like Jet magazine—the sight of Till has been credited with catalyzing the Civil Rights Movement by putting the horrors of racism on full display. On a trip visiting family in Mississippi during the summer of 1955, 14-year-old Till was kidnapped and murdered in retaliation for allegedly flirting with a white woman working at a local grocery store. Two men were later acquitted for the ghastly crime by a jury made up of all white men, though they later confessed to the murder in a magazine interview. Till’s death and legacy has been reexamined in recent months after Geroge Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis ignited mass protests against racial injustice and police brutality nationwide. Parallels have been drawn between Till and Floyd and the effect their deaths had on activism in America. “Emmett Till was my George Floyd,” wrote Civil Rights pioneer John Lewis in a New York Times op-ed before his death in July.

Further Reading

Emmet Till’s Chicago Home Given A Preliminary Landmark Status (Forbes)

‘Emmett Till Is Anne Frank To Black America’ (Forbes)