Daphne Chamberlain was in the fifth grade, living in Northaven Woods, when she saw one of the “most disturbing” images she’s ever seen.

She had just checked the mailbox and was flipping through a commemorative edition of Jet magazine looking for the music, and she came across a photo of Emmett Till’s body at his funeral in 1955.

“When I thought about the information that I read – that he’s Black like me, that he’s close in age as me, and this happened in Mississippi where I am – I was immediately thrown to the point where I was about to tell my parents we need to move,” Chamberlain said.

Chamberlain, who now serves as the chief program officer of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, shared this memory Thursday night at a panel discussion of Till’s legacy at the Columbus Arts Council’s Rosenzweig Arts Center. The traveling panel, funded by the Mississippi Humanities Council, included members of the interpretive center staff and 99-year-old Columbus community member Sallie Gray.

Emmett Till was a 14-year-old Black youth who went on a trip from Chicago to visit family in Money, Mississippi in the summer of 1955, when he was accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. On August 28, Till was kidnapped, beaten and shot in the head. His body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation website.

After Till’s body was recovered from the river, his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, demanded that his body be returned to her in Chicago, Emmett Till Interpretive Center Director of Public Engagement and Museum Education Benjamin Saulsberry shared Thursday with the crowd of more than 50 listeners. When she received his body, Till-Mobley decided to hold an open-casket funeral, which led to between 100,000 and 250,000 people viewing Till’s body in person, Saulsberry said. Following the funeral, images of Till’s body were disseminated by Jet Magazine, helping to spark the Civil Rights Movement, Saulsberry said.

“It completely opens the floodgate to others, for the first time, really seeing the effects of hatred,” Saulsberry said. “It’s not to say Emmett was the first child or person to be murdered due to race or racism, but this is the first time America is really forced to see the impact racism has.”

Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.M. Milam were accused of the murder. But after a seven day trial, they were acquitted of the crime by an all-white, all-male jury. A few months later, the pair told a magazine journalist the details of the crime, Saulsberry said.

For about 50 years after Till’s death, Chamberlain said, the community in Tallahatchie County fell into silence about the case. But in 2006, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission formed with the intention of breaking that silence, led by the county’s first Black member of its board of supervisors, Jerome G. Little. In 2007, the county issued an apology to the Till family.

Since then, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center has kept working to preserve parts of Till’s story, and to encourage conversation both in Sumner and throughout the state.

Remembering Till’s death

Chamberlain called upon Gray to share her memories of what it was like when she first heard about Till’s death. She shared details of growing up in the Jim Crow era South, along with the fear she felt after the news of Till’s death reached Columbus.

“When I heard about Emmett Till… I’m not going to tell you my age,” Gray said. “But you know, bad news travels fast. And the news was that he had gotten murdered and put into a river. That upsets you pretty bad. Especially when you’ve got young men coming into Mississippi and not knowing that they’re going to leave. So, I tell you, the best thing I know … to say. Teach your young men that are coming into Columbus, Mississippi not to wave at a white woman.”

Other community members shared their memories of when they first heard of Till. Ella McLeod, a former educator at New Hope High School, said seeing the photo for the first time upset her, but she became a “product of the Civil Rights movement.”

“I asked the question, ‘Why is it … that you don’t like me?’” McLeod said of racism. “I didn’t make myself. I’m probably getting off the point. But I can’t understand that. As old as I am, I still ask that question.”

Gerod Ellis, of Starkville, said he heard about Emmett Till growing up, but he started to understand Till’s impact further after watching the 2022 drama “Women of the Movement.” He said he was “ashamed” of how little he knew before then, but he has spent the past three years researching the case, talking with Till’s family members and witnesses, and visiting historical sites connected to Till.

“This was 100 miles away from me, and I didn’t know anything about this story,” Ellis said. “And I found out that Rosa Parks, later on, said the reason that she sat down on that bus and didn’t get up, she said she thought about Emmett Till and … enough was enough.”

Continued conversation

But the panel was not just about reflection. Community members also encouraged each other to look to the future and continue fighting for social change. Chamberlain encouraged listeners to engage with Till’s narrative and local history to make sure it is passed on to the next generation.

“This is also an opportunity for us to inspire young people and get them to embrace this history, but also get everybody in this room to think about how important local histories are and preserving that history,” Chamberlain said. “Because if we don’t find it as our obligation and our responsibility to preserve this history, that history will die.”

Friendly City Books owner Emily Liner also encouraged Columbus residents to join this year’s Community Read program, which is currently reading the book “The Barn: The Secret History of A Murder in Mississippi” by Wright Thompson. Group members will discuss the second section of the book at 4 p.m. Nov. 12 in the Fant Memorial Library on the Mississippi University for Women campus.