Emmett Till’s Chicago home granted city landmark status

CHICAGO — The Chicago South Side home of Emmett Till and his mother — where the boy was living when he was tortured and murdered during a 1955 trip to Mississippi — was granted city landmark status by the City Council on Wednesday as a group seeks to turn it into a museum.

The protection for the building at 6427 S. St. Lawrence Ave. shields it from demolition or many alterations that would significantly change its look.

Alderman Jeanette Taylor, in whose ward the house sits, said preserving the house is important to mark a key moment in Black history. “A lot of times, history involving African Americans gets forgotten about,” Taylor said.

“We will repeat history if we don’t remember it, and have these hard conversations,” she said.

Blacks in Green, a local nonprofit, purchased the home and is seeking to turn it into a museum.

The murder of the 14-year-old Black Chicagoan after he supposedly whistled at a white woman in Mississippi became a flashpoint in the civil rights movement when his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, chose an open-casket funeral at a South Side church to show mourners and the world the violence her son endured.