Emmett Till 65th Anniversary Commemoration Weekend 2020
Event Information
About this event
Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and Emmett Till Justice for Families Commemorate the 65th Year Anniversary of the Life, Death and Legacy of Emmett Louis Till on August 27-30 2020. in Jackson, Mississippi and surrounding areas.
You are cordially invited to join The 65th anniversary commemoration Host Committee, Family Members of Emmett Till along with the Emmett Till Justice For Families, Emmett Till Legacy Foundation (ETLF), Ambassadors, volunteers, activists, movement members, mother's of the movement, City of Jackson, MS, the local and global community and special guests in commemorating and honoring Emmett Louis Till and the 65th anniversary of his life, death and the launch of his and his mother's undeniable legacy.
Come and experience “WHERE IT ALL STARTED”. Support this special and historic 65th year Anniversary Commemoration “Time For Justice, Unity, Reflection and Remembrance”.
COVID-19 Pandemic ALERT: Please review summary of the Executive Order issued in Mississippi https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/9924.pdf
Please note: Social events and gatherings are limited to groups of ten (10) people indoors and twenty (20) people outdoors (Social distancing of (6) feet of separation between persons who do not live in the same household shall be maintained. These limitations do not apply to
a) churches
b) students in classrooms
c) gatherings in facilities governed by other capacity limitations (for example, there are specific rules for pools).
We will require that Face coverings must be worn when attending all 65th anniversary public events along with at least six (6) feet of separation must be maintained.
Please check back daily for any changes! We want all to be well and stay well. Wear your mask, keep your distance and wash your hands!
With that in mind. We will proceed as follows:
What: Emmett Till Family members and the global community Commemorates the Emmett Louis Till 65th Year Anniversary. It's a “Time For Justice, Unity, Reflection and Remembrance”
When: August 27- 30, 2020
Where: Various locations in Jackson, MS and the Delta area in Mississippi, see details below.
A complete List of Weekend events “WHERE IT ALL STARTED” announced below:
Here below is the calendar at a glance as of August 22:
- Thursday, August 27 at 5:30-6:30 p.m. CST Hear My Voice! Are you listening? Discussion w/Panel with phenomenal Gen-Z High School & College students. Moderator-Grace Stanley, Miss Black Teen Florida International Ambassador, ETLF Ambassador, HS Senior Brianna Reaves - Social Justice Activist, Womanist, and University of Mary Washington NAACP President Maisie Brown - Social Justice Activist, Orator, Black Lives Matter Mississippi, North Carolina A&T and Marquise Hunt, Chairman Emeritus NAACP National Youth and College Division Taskforce, ETLF Ambassador, Tougaloo College. Location: Virtual via Zoom Registration Required via Eventbrite to receive Zoom Link
- Thursday, August 27 at 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. CST important Non Partisan Candidate Forum /Voter Registration and GOTV (National and local candidates invited ) Organizers/Hosts: Dr. Edelia Carthan and DeKeither Stamps supported by Business Ministerial Alliance, Historic Freedom Democratic Party, invited Women For Progress and League of Women Voters, Mississippi Votes. Candidates Please contact Dr. “Jay” Carthan or Councilmember Stamps via Facebook if you are interested in participating. Location: Virtual via Zoom Registration Required via Eventbrite.
- Thursday, August 27, at 9 p.m. CST Welcome Reception/Meet and Greet with 65th Anniversary Commemoration Host Committee, Emmett Till Family members, Ambassadors and special guests. Location: Johnny T's Registration Required via Eventbrite. (First come first serve, Limited capacity due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions)
- Friday, August 28, All day and anywhere in the world, Join us for the annual Time for Unity in Black and White. Please wear black and white attire. Observe a Moment of Silence at noon CST Remembering all of those who have lost their lives to hate, racism and violence. Say Their Names! See Twitter @emmetttill, Facebook or Emmett Till Legacy Foundation (ETLF) on Instagram for more details.
- Friday, August 28, 12 p.m.-2 p.m. CST Remembering Emmett Louis Till Legacy Community Luncheon: 65 Years Later. Hosted by 65th Anniversary Commemoration Host Committee, Councilman Stokes, location TBA. Registration Required via Eventbrite. (First come first serve, Limited capacity due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions)
- Friday, August 28, 6 p.m. CST “Remembering Emmett Till” a Candlelight Vigil, Balloon Release, wreath presentation and Prayer for Peace. Location: Jackson City Hall 219 S. President St. Jackson, MS hosted by 65th Anniversary Commemoration Host Committee Priscilla Sterling 601 760 5136 and Laura Williams and Team Mississippi. Registration Required via Eventbrite. (First come first serve, Limited capacity due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions)·
- Friday, August 28, 7-9:30 p.m. CST The Power of History: Turning Tragedy into Triumph featuring the “Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till” Film screening up to 6 pm with post discussion and Q and A Topic: Will there ever be justice for Emmett Till? Part 1! You don't want to miss this! Location: Virtual Panel discussion (via zoom and live streamed via Facebook) includes Dynamic and talented Moderator actor, writer, theater founder, John Beasley, invited and confirmed guest panelist (film makers Keith Beauchamp & Ray Metoyer, Attorney Jaribu Hill, former FBI investigators Dale Killinger, Till Family Members Deborah Watts and Thelma Edwards, Cold Case Justice Janis McDonald, Concerned MS Res Melissa Earnest, Author and GSU African American Studies Prof Akinyele Umoja, Flonzie Brown civil and voting rights activist, eye Witness to Till Kidnapping, Historians, Clergy, Veterans of the Civil Rights movement, Freedom Riders, SNCC, CORE, BLM reps, Journalist, CBC or Congressional representatives, Mississippi AG and DA Location: Virtual. Registration Required via Eventbrite will be streamed in Facebook
- Saturday, August 29, at 9:00a.m – 11:00a.m. CST Emmett Till “March for Peace, Unity and Justice in Remembrance of Emmett Louis Till featuring Guest Speakers, Till family members, 65th Anniversary Commemoration Host Committee, Councilman DeKeither Stamps and Kenneth Stokes and more. Location: starting point “Mississippi State Capitol” 400 High St. Jackson, MS 39201 601.123.4567 to End point: Jackson City Hall 219 S. President St. Jackson, MS 39205 Phone: 601-960-1084 Hosted by the City of Jackson, MS. and City Council. Registration Required via Eventbrite
- Saturday, August 29, 11:30a.m.-10p.m CST: Experience “WHERE IT ALL STARTED” a Delta Mississippi 2.5 hr in Solidarity Caravan (your own vehicle or Transportation) to the Delta For The Till Trail of Tears and Terror (includes Driving, Walking and Museum Tour to historical sites in Sumner, Glendora, Leflore and Tallahatchie counties and more) Join members of the Emmett Louis Till Family and community on this emotional, educational and historical experience (Those entering the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center, will be charged a fee 5 for adults and children $3). Post reflections and discussion via Facebook Live Time TBA. with Emmett Till Family and Special guests. Hosted by Area students, Team Mississippi. Registration Required via Eventbrite. (Caravan Guided Tour by Delta Tours Jessie Jaynes Diming. The Fee $10 per person children 12 and below Free. Restricted capacity in venues due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions)· Delta Tours request Headcount! Please Register now and prepay (all fees go to Delta Tours) via Eventbrite
- Sunday August 30 at 11:30 am-1:00pm CST Worship Together in White Service with 65th Anniversary Host Committee, Emmett Till Family members and Team Mississippi. The All White event will take place in Hazlehurst, MS and other Family churches.
- Sunday August 30 at 11:00 a.m. CST Feel free to worship via Facebook along with Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr. (witness to the kidnapping of Emmett Till) who is the Senior Pastor of Argo Temple COGIC https://www.facebook.com/Argotemplecogic/
- Sunday, August 30, Community School supply and Food Drive 2-5 p.m. Location Drop off location TBA
*Times and Locations subject to change.
65th Anniversary Host Committee, Friends and Supporters coming together to Commemorate the 65th year anniversary in memory of Emmett Louis Till and his late mother, Mamie Till Mobley, “WHERE IT ALL STARTED”.
About Emmett Till: Sixty five years ago, on August 28, 1955, 14–year–old Emmett Till , a vibrant black youth from Chicago and the only son of Mamie Till Mobley, was visiting family in Mississippi. He had been accused of making sexual advances at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant at the Bryant grocery store in Money, Mississippi. He was kidnapped in the middle of the night from his uncles’ home near Money, Mississippi by at least two men, Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam. Emmett was badly beaten, lynched, shot in the head, brutally murdered and with a 75 pound cotton gin fan tied with barbed wire around his neck; his body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River. The Grand Jury in Sumner, Mississippi, indicted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam for the crime of murder and kidnapping. These two men were then tried on this charge and were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury after a deliberation of just over an hour. Within four months of their acquittal the two men confessed to the murder in an article for Look Magazine and paid close to $4,000 for it. Their confession, the decision by his mother to have an open casket funeral and published pictures of Emmett’s corpse, drew outrage across America and other countries and helped to ignite the historic and emerging civil rights movement.
Members of Citizens’ Councils (white supremacist civic organizations that used public policy and electoral power to reinforce Jim Crow), celebrated the acquittal, further threatening those who had testified against Bryant and Milam and members of the local NAACP. But rather than bending to the intimidation and psychic horror caused by the savage murder, Till’s family, along with national newspapers and civil rights organizations – including the NAACP used his death to strike a blow against racial injustice and terrorism.
Emmett Till and Martin Luther King Jr. And The March on Washington.....The Women's Democratic Council, under Jo Ann Robinson, called for a citywide bus boycott and asked a young, 26-year-old minister to help. His name was Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. King, was deeply impacted by Till’s abduction and murder, delivering a sermon just days after Bryant and Milam’s acquittal (“Pride Versus Humility: The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican,” at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church), in which he lamented Till and the lack of moral piety among violent segregationists.
“The white men who lynch Negroes worship Christ. That jury in Mississippi, which a few days ago in the Emmett Till case, freed two white men from what might be considered one of the most brutal and inhuman crimes of the twentieth century, worships Christ. The perpetrators of many of the greatest evils in our society worship Christ. This trouble is that all people, like the Pharisee, go to church regularly, they pay their tithes and offerings, and observe religiously the various ceremonial requirements. The trouble with these people, however, is that they worship Christ emotionally and not morally. They cast his ethical and moral insights behind the gushing smoke of emotional adoration and ceremonial piety,” King said.
Dr. King would use the momentum of outrage to galvanize the nation against social and racial injustice, invoking Till’s murder when talking about “the evil of racial injustice” in several speeches, as well as “the crying voice of a little Emmett C. Till, screaming from the rushing waters in Mississippi” in a 1963 Mother’s Day sermon. Eight years later, on the anniversary of Emmett Till’s murder, Dr. King delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington.
Learn more about Emmett Till and the African American struggle for equal rights in NMAAHC Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: Era of Segregation 1876-1968 exhibition. https://nmaahc.si.edu/defending-freedom-defining-freedom
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Info about the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation: Emmett Till Legacy Foundation (ETLF) is a 501c3 non profit organization established in 2005 and celebrating 15 years this year! We have been "creating a legacy of hope" and building a bridge from the past to the present and future in memory of Emmett Louis Till and in honor of his Mother, Mamie Till Mobley, ensuring that Justice prevails in his open murder case and that Emmett’s death will not be in vain.
A donation to support our efforts can be made at http://www.paypal.me/emmetttill or https://emmetttilllegacyfoundation.com/donate/
Feel free to contact us: 763 476 8677 or info@emmetttilllegacyfoundation.com , https://emmetttilllegacyfoundation.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Emmett-Till-Legacy-Foundation/138927669624
"Never Again" Movement and Pledge Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Never-Again-Movement-and-Pledge/136014269806914
Twitter: www.twitter.com/EmmettTill
Instagram: emmetttilllegacyfoundation
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Special Note from Team Mississippi and the 65th Anniversary Commemoration Host Committee: Our hearts, good spirits, prayers and warm wishes are extended to all family, supporters, friends and organizations who are hosting Remembering Emmett Till and 65 year anniversary observances and other events (i.e. March On Washington in DC, events in Chicago and in LA ) taking place across the country. Lets support each other and join our voices together to affect change. We are much stronger together! #FOEWe thank you!
We encourage our readers to volunteer, support and attend any of these events as applicable. In Solidarity and Unity!
Join our Demand For #JusticeForEmmettTill by signing the petition here https://t.co/hSc9qvHUTm
Also Access Petition by Text EMMETT to 243725
#BlackLivesMatter #RememberingEmmettTill #RememberEmmettTill #Aug28 #EmmettTill65th #EmmettTill65 #SpiritOfEmmettTill #SpiritOfMamieTillMobley #NeverForget #LestWeForget #PastIsNotPast #WhereItAllStarted #MoneyMississippi #SumnerMississippi #JusticeInTime #TimeForUnity #Mississippi #CivilRights #History #ForMoreThanAWhistle #ChicagoHome #FearisNotAnOption#EmmettTillStillMatters #JusticeForEmmettTill #Justice4EmmettTill #JusticeMustPrevail #Noprofitbeforejustice #Simeon Wright #MamieTillMobley
The Aug 28 Requiem Postponed to 2021 due to COVID! Stay Tuned for The REQUIEM Composed, Arranged and directed by the one and only musical genius H. Michael Dryver! This is one moving performance, a sacred musical work you don't want to miss! (Venue will be announced) as we commemorate the Anniversary of the life, unforgettable brutal death/ lynching and rise of the incredible legacy of 14 year old Emmett Louis Till and his mother Mamie Till Mobley.
Watch For more details and updates here:https://www.facebook.com/events/408999023045097
Tickets for 2021 REQUIEM: available via Eventbrite now.


