What if Emmett Till lived?
It's a question Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. said he asks himself often.
"A lot of times we think if we had done this and that, he would be here," he said.
Parker is Till's cousin, best friend and the last surviving witness to his kidnapping in Mississippi 71 years ago.
In the wake of what would have been Till’s 85th birthday, Parker is honoring Till's memory through a new exhibit titled: "If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground" at The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP).
It brings together hundreds of photographs by more than 110 artists from the MoCP’s permanent collection.
Carolina Garibay
"When you look at the photos, the swimming pictures, other things we were doing, he and I riding bicycles, it stirs up a lot of memories," Parker said.
In the exhibit, you won't find photos of Till. The exhibit's curator Sarah Lewis said rather, you'll see moments that could have belonged to Till if he had lived.
"This exhibition asks what was robbed of Emmett Till, and how in seeing that, as the show lays out through the work of 110 photographers, can we envision what change would have been required in American society for that to have been possible?" Lewis said.
The exhibit also focuses heavily on Chicago, where Till was born, featuring photographs of prominent Chicago figures, such as Michael Jordan and Barack Obama, along with famous city sites.
Carolina Garibay
"It is a show that allows people to see Chicago's importance to American Democratic progress," Lewis said. "It envisions the life he should've been able to have if he came back from Mississippi to Chicago, where he lived."
Parker said he hopes people gain a better understanding of who Till was and are encouraged to change the future so that there aren't "other Tills."
"I hope people can learn from it that we're here to serve one another in a good way," he said. "We're here to talk about history, how far we've come and how much work we need to do."
"If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground" is on display through Dec. 19.
