Why you need to see the Emmett Till exhibit at the Smithsonian

In an alcove on the lower level of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture lies the casket of Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who was lynched because he allegedly whistled at a white woman during a visit to Money, Miss., in August 1955.

In this time of repetitive media playback of the deaths of black people -- such as video of police-involved shootings -- the exhibit is especially poignant. But museum director Lonnie Bunch still wrestled with whether the casket was something the Smithsonian should show.

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"Was that ghoulish?" Bunch says. "I never wanted to exoticize or exploit Emmett's murder, but I kept hearing his mother (Mamie Till-Mobley's) voice as she used to always talk to me about how important it was to her that Emmett didn't die in vain."
It was those competing imperatives -- to illustrate the brutality of Till's murder while respecting his humanity and not making a spectacle -- that Bunch struggled to reconcile.

After Till's remains were exhumed and reinterred in 2005, the family turned over the casket to the museum to be refurbished and preserved. A farewell service was held in 2009 at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, the same church where Till's funeral was held in 1955. It was there that Bunch got the idea for an exhibit re-creating the spirit of the 2009 gathering.

It's why no photography is allowed inside the exhibit. It forces visitors to be present, to take in the photos of Till and his mother and his coffin. The casket is staged in such a way that people have to stand on tiptoe to see even a corner of the image inside showing his mutilated face, which is also displayed in a glass case directly outside the exhibit.

At the funeral, Till's mother insisted his casket be open, so his face could bear witness to the savagery of those who had killed him.

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Beyond the coffin and a solitary pew, there's a video of Mamie describing Till's mangled body, which would become a visual catalyst for the civil rights movement. Rising above her steady voice is that of the late Mahalia Jackson singing Amazing Grace.

"The word that I use when visiting the exhibit is 'intentional,'" says April Reign, managing editor of Broadway Black and editor at large for Nu Tribe Magazine. "I think they made the intentional choice to provide those images and those pieces as part of the exhibit without centering the very graphic picture."

Reign, who has previously written about how the degradation of black bodies has become "perverse entertainment," says "it is important to safekeep" those images. "When you see someone lying on the ground who looks like they could be related to you, your brother, your sister, I would submit that it could cause a sort of PTSD," she says. "The repetitive showing of violence affects our psyche and, for some, it becomes a type of death porn."

There is a more thoughtful way to handle these losses -- and it involves "looking in the eyes of the family," says Deborah Watts, a cousin of Till's and the co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation.

"The impact will be there forever for those families, so justice needs to be done," she says. "And so whether it's with what others may call making a spectacle, if it's the truth -- if it has been recorded, if it does cause people to take action -- so be it. ... But (the family) has to be a part of the consideration. Then, you decide the way it's handled."

And for Watts, the Smithsonian handled it well. "As I entered the exhibit, I felt Mamie's presence ... and this sense of, 'Well done.'"

The exhibit is as much a tribute to the legacy of Till's mother as it is to Till, she says. "There were countless murders that were going on, but the decision she made to show her only son's remains with that open-casket funeral ... that opened a window to what was happening to other African Americans all across the country."
That's why Watts believes it's so important to see the exhibit.

"Certainly, it was painful for America back then, it was painful for African Americans and for our family, but if you could, for a moment, share in that part of our history ... and understand this is who we are," she says. "This is our journey. This is what we've fought for. This is how we triumphed."