SPEAKER_02: Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. This month we're highlighting ragers, women who use their anger, often righteous, though not always, to accomplish extraordinary things. Today, we're talking about the bravery of a mother who, in the face of unimaginable sorrow, helped change the course of the civil rights movement. Let's talk about Mamie Till Mobley. Mamie was born in 1921 in a small town in rural Mississippi. When she was still very young, her family moved to Argo, Illinois, right outside of Chicago. They were among the millions of Black Americans to move from the Jim Crow South to northern cities during the Great Migration. These families were escaping racial violence and discrimination and hoping to find better jobs and education opportunities. As she grew up, Mamie watched more and more of her family members move up north. She later wrote, Mamie's parents were adamant that she take her education seriously. As Mamie remembered, In my day, the girls had one ambition, to get married. Very few kids finished high school. But Mamie did. She was the fourth Black student to ever graduate from her high school, and the first to make the A honor roll. When Mamie was 18 years old, she married Lewis Till, who worked at the same factory as her father. About a year later, their son Emmett Till was born on July 25, 1941. Not long after Emmett's birth, Mamie and Lewis separated. Mamie raised Emmett, or Bobo as she called him, with the help of her mother. When Emmett was 14 years old, he asked Mamie to let him tag along with his cousins on a summer trip to Mississippi. He would stay with his great-uncle and would earn some money picking cotton. At first, Mamie said no. She had grown up hearing stories from her parents about the racial violence happening in Mississippi. While there was still racial discrimination in Chicago, during the 1950s, the Jim Crow South was another world entirely. Emmett had a reputation as a jokester. Mamie wrote, For Emmett, life was laughter, and laughter was life-giving. There was so much joy in his carefree world that he just wanted to share with everyone around him. That aspect of Emmett's personality scared Mamie. She worried he would be too friendly and confident in the face of white Southerners' open hostility. But Emmett begged his mother to let him go, and she finally agreed. But not without warning him of the danger of interacting with white people in Mississippi. She instructed him to never look a white woman in the eye and to only speak if spoken to. She told Emmett, If you have to humble yourself, then just do it. Get on your knees if you have to. On August 20, 1955, Mamie kissed Emmett goodbye before watching him board a train headed to Mississippi. Eight days later, Mamie got a call from Mississippi. Emmett had been forcefully taken in the night by two white men from his great uncle's house. No one knew where he was. Mamie sprung into action. She started calling Chicago newspapers to spread the news that her son had gone missing. The next day, she met with the Chicago branch of the NAACP for help raising the alarm. She kept making calls to anyone she could think of who might help her find Emmett, even adding a second phone line to her house so she wouldn't miss any new information. On August 31, Mamie received the news that her son's body had been pulled from the Tallahatchie River. Emmett had been violently murdered after a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, accused him of whistling at her. His killers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were the white woman's husband and his half-brother. Mamie later recalled that horrible moment in her memoir, gathered with her family at her mother's house. She wrote, Slowly I began to pull myself together. I saw that Mama was in no condition to talk to anyone. It was going to fall on me. Mamie acted quickly. The Mississippi sheriff was insisting Emmett be buried immediately. But Mamie kept making calls until the sheriff allowed her son's body to be brought back to Chicago. When Mississippi officials instructed that Emmett's casket remain sealed, again Mamie resisted. She wrote, If I had to take a hammer and open that box myself, it was going to be opened. Emmett's body was so brutalized by his murderers that it was almost unrecognizable. But as upsetting as it was to see her son that way, Mamie insisted that his casket be opened at his funeral. She explained, They had to see what I had seen. The whole nation had to bear witness to this. The funeral happened at a church on the south side of Chicago. Tens of thousands of people came to mourn the loss of Emmett Till. Footage of the funeral reveals the shock and despair on churchgoers' faces as they filed past Emmett's casket. Mamie invited black publications, including Jet, Ebony, and the Chicago Defender, to take photos of the funeral and of Emmett's body. When Jet ran the photos, millions of people around the country witnessed the racial hatred that had led to the death of a 14-year-old boy. Mamie braved death threats to testify at the trial of Emmett's murderers in Sumner, Mississippi. But the all-white, all-male jury found the two men not guilty. Mamie never received justice from the legal system for her son's murder. But her insistence that the world know about what those white men had done to her son had an enormous impact. After the trial, Mamie gave speeches across the country. Emmett's story inspired outrage in many Americans, outrage that turned into action.
SPEAKER_03: Privilege classes never give up their privileges.
SPEAKER_02: The NAACP received an influx of new members and donations. Only a few months after Emmett's death, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama. She later told Mamie she'd been thinking of Emmett at that moment. It sparked the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Board
SPEAKER_00: cut and the whole civil rights movement.
SPEAKER_02: Mamie went on to earn a bachelor's and master's degree and worked as a special education teacher in Chicago elementary schools for many years. She formed the Emmett Till Players, a program for young people to perform speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 2003, she published her memoir, Death of Innocence, the story of the hate crime that changed America, to tell Emmett's full story. Not just his murder, but also of his many happy years with her in Chicago. Mamie died of heart failure in a Chicago hospital in 2003. She was 81 years old. Today, Mamie is celebrated for her courage in the face of trauma and racist harassment and threats. Her insistence that people know her son's story helped galvanize an entire movement. Mamie explained, I have wanted Emmett's name to stand for healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, and hope. All month we're talking about ragers. For more information, check us out on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: Evidence wise, we have virtually no evidence.
SPEAKER_03: In 1995, Detective Tony Richardson was trying to figure out who killed a fellow officer. The case comes down to who is believed and who is ignored. Oh my goodness. We did convict an innocent man. I'm Beth Shelburne from Lava for Good podcasts. This is Ear Witness. Listen to Ear Witness on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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