Mamie Till

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley was an American educator and activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, who was murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955 at the age of 14, after allegedly offending a white cashier woman, Carolyn Bryant, at the grocery store. For her son's funeral in Chicago, 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." Born in Mississippi, Till-Mobley moved with her parents to the Chicago area during the Great Migration. After her son's murder she became an educator and activist in the Civil Rights Movement.