Remembering Emmett Till

Realms of Memory

It took nearly fifty years before a single dollar was spent on commemorating Emmett Till in the state of Mississippi where he was brutally murdered in August 1955. Dave Tell, University of Kansas Professor and author of Remembering Emmett Till, argues that we can’t understand the remembering and forgetting of Emmett Till in the Mississippi Delta where he died without considering the natural and built environment. From the Tallahatchie River where the fourteen-year-old boy’s body was sunk to Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market where the story was set in motion, the buildings and natural features of the Mississippi Delta have had a profound impact on memory of Emmett Till.