Mamie Till

Mamie Till studied at Argo Community High School, Chicago State University and Loyola University Chicago. The recorded working language is English. The authority associates the name with Anti-lynching movement. Employment is recorded with United States Air Force, Social Security Administration and Chicago Public Schools. Distinctions recorded are Congressional Gold Medal.

• Name — Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley • Birth Name — Mamie Elizabeth Carthan • Born — 23 November 1921 • Birthplace — Webb, Mississippi, U.S. • Died — 6 January 2003 • Place of death — Chicago, Illinois, U.S. • Occupation — * Educator • activist • Known for — Mother of Chicago teenager Emmett Till who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 • Other Names — Mamie Till-Bradley • Years Active — 1955–2003 • Education — * Argo Community High School • Chicago Teacher's College • Loyola University Chicago • Children — Emmett Till • Awards — Congressional Gold Medal Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley (born Mamie Elizabeth Carthan; November 23, 1921 – January 6, 2003) was an American educator and civil rights activist. Her 14-year-old son Emmett Till was the victim of a lynching in Mississippi on August 28, 1955. For Emmett's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the coffin containing his body be left open because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."

Born Mamie Elizabeth Carthan on November 23, 1921, in Webb, Mississippi, she was the only child of Alma Smith Carthan and John Wiley Nash Carthan. During her early childhood, her family relocated from the South as part of the Great Migration, when many African Americans moved north due to frequent violence by white southerners, including lynchings and racial massacres. In 1922, shortly after Mamie was born, John Carthan moved to Argo, Illinois, near Chicago, where he found work at the Argo Corn Products Refining Company. Alma Carthan joined her husband in January 1924, bringing along two-year-old Mamie. They settled in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Argo. Mamie was 13 years old when her parents got divorced. Devastated, Mamie threw herself into her schoolwork and excelled in her studies. Alma had high hopes for her only daughter; Mamie later stated that although at that time "girls had one ambition—to get married", Alma encouraged her to concentrate on her schooling instead. Mamie was the first African-American student to make the "A" honor roll and only the fourth African-American student to graduate from the predominantly white Argo Community High School. At age 18, Mamie met a young man from New Madrid, Missouri, named Louis Till. Employed by the Argo Corn Company, he was an amateur boxer who was popular with women, but Mamie's parents disapproved of the charismatic Till, thinking that he was "too sophisticated" for their daughter. At her mother's insistence, Mamie broke off their courtship. However, the persistent Till won out, and they married on October 14, 1940. Both were 18 years old. Their only child, Emmett Louis Till, was born nine months later, on July 25, 1941. The marriage was troubled: Louis was unfaithful and became abusive. On one occasion, he choked Mamie to unconsciousness; later that same night, Mamie threw a pot of scalding water at Louis. They separated in 1942, and Mamie eventually obtained a restraining order against her husband. After Louis repeatedly violated the order, a judge gave him the choice of serving jail time or joining the U.S. Army. Choosing the latter, Louis enlisted in 1943. In 1945, Mamie received notice from the War Department that, while serving in Italy, Louis had been executed due to "willful misconduct". Her attempts to learn more were comprehensively blocked by the Army bureaucracy. The full details of Louis Till's criminal charges and execution only emerged 10 years later. He, along with accomplice Fred A. McMurray, had been charged with raping and murdering an Italian woman. Both men were tried and convicted by a U.S. Army general court-martial, and their sentence was death by hanging. Their sentences were appealed, but the appeals were denied. They were buried in Plot E of the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial in France. Later analysis of the trial by John Edgar Wideman would call Louis Till's guilt into question. During the decade after World War II, Mamie had two brief marriages that both ended in divorce, first to Lemorse Mallory in 1946 and then to Pink Bradley in 1951. By the early 1950s, Mamie and Emmett had moved to an apartment on Chicago's South Side in Woodlawn. She worked as a clerk first for the Social Security Administration, then for the Air Force where she was in charge of confidential files. Mamie worked long hours, and Emmett took over many household chores, including cooking dinner each evening.

In August 1955, when Emmett was 14, Mamie put him on the train to spend the summer visiting his cousins at the home of his great-uncle Moses Wright in Money, Mississippi. Before Emmett left, Mamie warned him that Chicago and Mississippi were completely different, that he would have to act differently, and he should know how to behave in front of white people in the South. Mamie never saw Emmett alive again, as he was abducted and brutally murdered on August 28, 1955, after being accused of interacting inappropriately with a white woman. Three days after arriving in Money, on August 24, Emmett and his cousins went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to buy refreshments after working on a farm field in the strong sun. The market mostly served the sharecroppers. Carolyn Bryant, the wife of store owner Roy Bryant, was alone in the store that day because her sister was watching the children. The precise facts of what happened at the store are disputed; however, Till was accused of touching, flirting with, or whistling at Carolyn. At 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 28, Roy Bryant and his half-brother John William "J. W." Milam, kidnapped Till from Moses Wright's home. Till was abducted while he was sharing a bed with a cousin and there were a total of eight people in the cabin. Till's great-aunt, Elizabeth, offered the men money, but Milam refused. They threatened death to those in the cabin if they did not let them take Emmett. Wright said he heard them ask someone in the car if this was the boy, and heard someone say "yes." Till admitted to the men to being the one who had talked to Carolyn. They brutally pistol-whipped him, beat him, made him strip, and shot him in the head before disposing of his dead body by dumping it in a river. Till was tossed over the Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, near the Tallahatchie River. His face was unrecognizable because of the trauma. The only identifying feature that was a factor in identifying Till was a ring that had belonged to his father that he was wearing. It was a silver ring with the initials "LT" and "May 25, 1943" carved in it. The following month, on September 23, Milam and Bryant faced trial for Till's kidnapping and murder, but were acquitted by the all-white jury after a five-day trial and a 67-minute deliberation. Four months later in an interview with Look magazine on January 24, 1956, the foreman said, "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long." Protected against double jeopardy, Milam and Bryant admitted to killing Emmett Till and were not tried twice. Both men were paid and made a profit between $3,600 and $4,000.

• Illustration — Till-Mobley (center) among mourners at her son's funeral For her son's funeral, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words: "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby." Tens of thousands of people viewed Emmett's body, and photographs circulated around the country. Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender (both Black publications) published pictures of Till's disfigured body. Mamie opted to have an open-casket funeral for five days at the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ. As a result of the enormous attention it received, the Till case became emblematic of the disparity of justice for Blacks in the American South.

After her son's murder, it became quickly evident that Till-Mobley was an effective public speaker. She enjoyed a close relationship with many African-American media outlets, and the NAACP hired Till-Mobley to go on a speaking tour around the country and share her son's story. This was one of the most successful fundraising tours in NAACP history, though it was cut short by a business dispute with NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins over payment for Till-Mobley's work on the tour. She continued speaking out, and to influence the jury during the trial of her son's murderers, Till-Mobley flew to Mississippi and provided testimony. Till-Mobley's activism extended far beyond what she did in the wake of her son's murder. However, since his death became symbolic of the lynchings of the mid-1950s, Till-Mobley remains most well-known in that context. For this, and all her activism, Till-Mobley was able to use her role as a mother to relate to other people and to gain support for the cause of racial justice. A large part of Till-Mobley's work and activism centered on education, as she advocated for children living in poverty for over 40 years, including 23 years teaching in the Chicago public school system. Till-Mobley established a theater group called "The Emmett Till Players". This group worked with school children outside the classroom in a theatrical setting, where they would learn and perform famous speeches by civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. to inspire hope, unity, and determination to their audiences.

After her son's murder, Till-Mobley returned to school to become a teacher. In 1960, she graduated from Chicago Teachers College (now Chicago State University). Till-Mobley taught on the South Side of Chicago, while also continuing her work as an activist and her efforts to honor the life of her son. In 1971, Till-Mobley earned a master's degree in educational administration from Loyola University Chicago. In 1992, Till-Mobley had the opportunity to listen while Roy Bryant was interviewed about his involvement in her son's murder. With Bryant unaware that Till-Mobley was listening, he asserted that Emmett Till had ruined his life. Bryant expressed no remorse and stated, "Emmett Till is dead. I don't know why he can't just stay dead."

On June 24, 1957, Mamie Till-Bradley married Gene Mobley and later changed her surname to Till-Mobley. They were married until Gene died from a stroke on March 18, 2000. On January 6, 2003, Till-Mobley died of heart failure at age 81. She was buried next to her husband and near her son at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, where her monument reads, "Her pain united a nation." Till-Mobley coauthored with Christopher Benson her memoir, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America, published by Random House in 2003, almost 50 years after her son's death. Till-Mobley died a few months before the book was published. She closes her autobiography by writing, "Although I have lived so much of my life without Emmett, I have lived my entire life because of him."