As renovations take place, the owner of the home hopes to reopen to the public sometime this year.
Cultural preservation organization African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund released $3 million in grants to 33 historic sites, including the childhood home of Emmett Till, the Black teenager who was abducted and brutally killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman in 1955, Winona Daily News reported.
The home on Chicago’s Southside, which belonged to Till’s mother, the late Mamie Till Mobley, is set to receive funding for a project director who is scheduled to oversee restoration efforts such as restoring the second floor to what it looked like when the Tills lived there.
Leggs wanted the Till home, in particular, to be highlighted, as Emmett’s killing was labeled as a staple in the civil rights movement. He continues to push the narrative that preserving the home is especially important so Ms. Mobley can get her shine.
After Emmett’s tragic death, Mobley insisted that her son’s body be displayed in an open casket — just as it was when pulled out of the river — in an effort to show the world what racism looks like. “It was a catalytic moment in the civil rights movement, and through this, we lift and honor Black women in civil rights,” Leggs said.
The person who knows best about the “moment” Emmett was taken was his cousin Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr, who said his death “was like a nightmare, but it wasn’t a nightmare” during a Black History Month celebration in Milwaukee. According to Fox 6 News, Parker was the only living relative who was with Till the night he was lynched in Mississippi. The next time he saw his cousin was at the funeral.
Parker said he doesn’t know if he could’ve made the same decision his aunt made — having an open casket — but called her “courageous” for doing it. “I never thought about it, letting his body be seen like that, but she was a courageous woman,” Parker said.
“Every time I saw her, I had survivors’ guilt; I came back, and he didn’t.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
