Mamie Till-Mobley

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley was born in Webb, Mississippi and raised on Chicago's South Side. She was a devoted mother to her only child, Emmett Louis Till. In the summer of 1955, she sent 14-year-old Emmett to visit relatives in Money, Mississippi — a decision that would change the course of American history.

Emmett was kidnapped, brutally tortured, and murdered by two white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman. When his body was returned to Chicago, Mamie made the agonizing decision to hold an open-casket funeral. "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby," she said. The photographs of Emmett's mutilated body, published in Jet magazine, shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement.

Mamie spent the rest of her life as an educator and activist, teaching in Chicago public schools and speaking around the country about her son's legacy. She fought for decades to bring his killers to justice and worked to ensure that Emmett's sacrifice would never be forgotten.