Maime Till-Mobley Was More than Emmett Till’s Mother, She Was the Mother of a Movement
By Toni. A Wilson, Director of Culture & Narrative Shift (GGE)
“The business of one of us had better be the business of us all!” — Maime Till Mobley
When I first learned about the release of the film Till, produced by Whoopi Goldberg and written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu, I wasn’t moved to see it. I thought to myself, “Haves’t the Black community been traumatized by the story of the brutal murder and lynching of Emmett Till enough?” Afterall, there had just been a documentary released on Hulu earlier this year with an episode detailing his horrific death. I couldn’t imagine the need for us to endure anymore and I was clear about the media’s cannibalistic need to revel in harm to black people on screen. But alas, something kept gnawing at me and telling me that Till was different — that it was something I needed to see, that the world needed to see. So, I did some research on the new film and when I discovered it would center the story of Maime Till-Mobley’s journey for justice for her son and how she spearheaded the start of the Civil Rights Movement, let’s just say, I was ALL in.
Till tells the story of Maime Till-Mobley and her brave pivotal decision to hold an open casket viewing for her 14 year old son, Emmett Till, who was kidnapped in the middle of the night from his great aunt and great uncle’s home in Mississippi, brutally beaten, wrapped in barbed wire, shot in the head, and left in the Tallahatchie River with just his late father’s ring worn on his finger asthe only identifier on a body severely damaged. Without Maime Till-Mobley we wouldn’t still be speaking the name of Emmett “Bobo’’ Till to this day.
Maime, like many Black women, understood that while this horrific act impacted her personally, there was something so much bigger happening. The moment Maime is made aware that her son has been kidnapped in the middle of the night by two white men, she contacts The Defenders and Chicago Tribune; two prominent Chicago media publications at the time. Maime knew that if she wanted to see her son again, and if she and her son stood any chance at being reunited — people needed to know what was still happening in the South. This needed to be made a national issue.
In the film, there’s a discussion between Maime and her cousin, a lawyer and part of the NAACP local chapter, where she explains to him her refusal to have him be buried on the same soil where he was killed. At the time the Sheriff in Mississippi was already digging the grave for Emmett’s body. She demands his body be returned to her, to Chicago where Emmett grew up. In another effort to preserve the life of her son and her fight for justice, Maime begins making phone calls to anybody that will listen. The new Mayor of Chicago, Daley Sr., stepped up and got the burial stopped. In a moment of symmetry, the same train Emmett took to Mississippi was the same train that brought his body back to Chicago. When Maime received her son, ignoring the agreement made by Mississippi law officials and Chicago officials, she opened the wooden box that held her son. Her decision to witness her son’s body changed the course of history forever. Had Maime not been deliberate in her son’s body being returned to her, we would not have these recollections of Emmett’s murder and we would possibly not have the Civil Rights Movement as we know it.
Maime rose to the occasion and met hatred and anti Blackness head on. She took a bold political stance by not having her son’s body retouched by the undertaker but instead held a public viewing for everyone to see exactly what racism in America’s south had done to her son. Maime placed pictures of Bobo on the casket and at the time went against most funeral rituals. People who saw Emmett’s body left the church forever changed.. Maime said, “People have to face my son and realize how barbaric this hate can be. They have to see themselves.” Maime did more than give Jet Magazine a front cover image; she put a face and name to lynching.
In a trial where womanhood and femininity would be called into question: is the Black woman the victim or is the white woman the victim?, and where her dating history would be framed for her to appear hypersexual; Maime continued her pursuit for justice by committing to testifying at the trial of her son’s murder. She was smuggled into Mississippi and gave a powerful testimony expressing the horrible grief of any mother who experienced the loss of a child and a mother who knew her son’s body. While Carolyn Bryant, Emmett’s accuser, was creating falsehood to portray Emmett as a “sex crazed Black boy,” Maime was not waiting around for that. She gets up and has already digested that the trial will end in an acquittal. She goes back home to Chicago and is greeted by the joyous memories of her son’s laugh, his dancing, and his smile. The movie ends with Emmett and Maime’s joy; the same way it started.
I’m grateful to Maime and Black women across the world who are fighting. Black feminist theory has taught us and continues to teach us that no one tells our stories the way we do. No one will show up for our stories the way we do. No one will fight for our justice and communities the way we do. Maime was a grieving mother, not an activist. But that is our legacy of Black people and Mrs. Till Mobley. I like to think of Maime and other Black women movement leaders as my ancestors and it is from them, too, that I get my fighting spirit. Thank you Whoopi Goldberg and Chinonye Chukwu for telling this story in this way and thank you Maime for sharing your son and perseverance for justice with us.
Till is in theaters now.
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Toni Wilson is the Director of Culture & Narrative Shift at Girls for Gender Equity. She is also a social worker, organizer, cultural critic, plus size influencer, fat liberationist and BlackFeminist from Brooklyn with roots in Jamaica. She can be found @ FatBlackLuxury.
