Bus Tour | The Story of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley with Dilla Thomas

Join Chicago urban historian Shermann “Dilla” Thomas on an engaging bus tour of key Chicago sites important to Emmett Till’s life and that humanize the well-known story of his harrowing death.

In 1955, news of the tragic, racially motivated abduction and murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago, while visiting relatives in Mississippi shook the nation. Lynchings of African Americans were uncommon enough by the 1950s that the horrific nature of the killing of a young boy permeated the national consciousness. The decision of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, to have an open casket funeral and make known the brutality of his murder helped propel the story into people’s hearts and minds. Still, the impact of anti-Black racism and white supremacy shaped both legal and public responses to his murder.

The following trial of his killers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, and their subsequent acquittal by an all-white jury, Till’s story became a catalyst for the next stages of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

As you traverse the city with Dilla, learn about Emmett’s early childhood, Mamie’s life, and more as you visit sites such as Mamie Till-Mobley’s home in Chicago and the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ where Till’s funeral took place.

Tour runs 2–3 hours and starts and ends at the Chicago History Museum.

$55; $45 members