Emmett Till's Chicago House Gets Landmark Status Amid Plans For Black Heritage Site

The former Chicago home of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy whose 1955 lynching in Mississippi helped ignite the nation’s civil rights movement, has been given official landmark status amid efforts to transform the building into a beacon for Black Americans and a living remembrance of their history. Courtesy of Ward Miller, Preservation Chicago “With the theater next door, it amplifies the ability to tell different dimensions of the story and gives people a way to spend several hours to rest and reflect, enjoy the garden and really amplify information about the Great Migration and the Till family,” she said. “We are telling the tragedy of Emmett Till through the lens of the Great Migration, which, by our account, is America’s underreported history.” Ward Miller, executive director of the nonprofit Preservation Chicago, who suggested the home be designated a Chicago landmark, also emphasized a need to tell the story not just of how Till died but of how he lived. These changes “do not impair the building’s ability to convey its significant association with Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley in particular, and the Civil Rights Movement in general,” the report states.