Emmett Till

Today we visited the National Center of Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta Georgia, a three-floor museum dedicated to the achievement of the Civil Rights movement. During our visit there was one thing that hit me pretty hard, a photo of Emmett Till. Till was a 14 year old African-American living in Mississippi was who was mutilated, shot, and thrown to the bottom of the Tallahatchie River after allegedly flirting with a white girl, Till’s body was found 3 days later. While there are photos of Till’s mutilated face this photo was actually of him simply smiling. What impacted me was that this was the first time I’d ever seen his face not disfigured. Up until that moment I’d only seen Till’s disfigured face after being murdered in where I couldn’t make out what he could’ve looked like prior to the assault. I only knew that it was him because of his name placed under the photo. It’s difficult to imagine that such hate ever existed in anyone that could ignite such horrible actions onto another human being.

Steven Villa, The Park School of Baltimore