OUR HISTORY
The Emmett Till Interpretive Center was the vision of the late Jerome G. Little, the first African-American President of the Tallahatchie County Board of Supervisors.
For fifty-plus years, the town of Sumner and the surrounding area tried to ignore the memory of Emmett Till with the hope that the incident would fade. But instead of fading, the memory and importance of Emmett Till grew.
In 2006, Supervisor Little organized the Emmett Till Memorial Commission of Tallahatchie County, Inc. The ETMC, made up of a multi-racial group of citizens, realized that in order to properly remember and honor Emmett Till, they needed to first break the silence and take responsibility for their role in the injustice. In 2007, the ETMC offered a formal apology to the Till family on behalf of citizens of Tallahatchie County and delivered the apology to the Till family in a public ceremony in front of the Sumner Courthouse–the same courthouse where the murderers had walked free 52 years earlier.
The ETMC knew that the apology would be meaningless without action. Over eight years, the organization worked across racial lines to restore the Tallahatchie County Courthouse back to its condition during the 1955 trial of Emmett Till’s murderers and to create an Emmett Till museum to live out the first line of the apology, which reads, "racial reconciliation begins by telling the truth."
As part of that truth-telling, the Commission erected several historical markers around Tallahatchie County to recognize the sites in the Till story. The signs were stolen, shot, defaced with acid, and thrown in the Tallahatchie River. The Commission replaced the signs each time they were vandalized, with a fourth bulletproof sign installed in 2019 at Graball Landing, marking where Emmett’s body was recovered.
In 2015, the Commission opened the Emmett Till Interpretive Center across the street from the courthouse to provide tours and programming about the Till story. Restoration of the courtroom was completed in 2015, and the restoration of the full building was completed in 2020. In 2021, ETIC led the campaign for the creation of a national park dedicated to Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley. Two years later, on July 25, 2023, what would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday, President Biden designated by executive order the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, which included sites in Chicago and Mississippi. After the designation, ETIC became an official partner of the National Monument, collaborating on public programming and helping fundraise for the park. The Commission also formally changed its name in 2023 to the Emmett Till Interpretive Center.
In November 2025, ETIC announced the purchase of the barn where Emmett was murdered. It will be developed into a public memorial where visitors can reflect on and learn from history, transforming a place of harm into a place of healing.
From its origins up to the present, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center has continued to tell the stories of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley as a way toward racial healing. Through its work in public education, memorialization and historic preservation, and partnership with the Till National Monument, the Center works to process past pain and imagine new ways of moving forward.