Exhibit detailing trial of men who killed Emmett Till stops at northeastern Louisiana museum

The Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Heritage Museum is hosting the Emmett Till traveling exhibit, now through April 30. 

The exhibit details the trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, the two white men accused of the brutal killing of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy visiting in the South who was murdered after being accused of whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi. 

Till was abducted and brutally murdered on Aug. 28, 1955 after Bryant's wife, Carolyn Bryant, falsely accused him of whistling at her. The following month, Bryant and Milam were acquitted by an all-white jury after a five-day trial and a 67-minute deliberation. In a 1956 interview with Look magazine, protected against double jeopardy, the pair admitted to murdering Till. 

The museum started working to bring the exhibit to Northeast Louisiana following the airing of the ABC television show "Women of the Movement" , museum president Joyce Powell said. The first season of the show chronicled the story of Till's mother Mamie Till-Mobley and her efforts in seeking justice for his brutal murder.

"I reached out to Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, because they talked about the exhibit in other places. So I said, 'Let me see can I get it'," Powell said. "When I saw the Anti-Lynching Bill was passed, I said, 'Oh, this will be right in line'. We have been planning for a while to get the Emmett Till Traveling Exhibit but I really just wanted to show the whole gamut or the history part behind the exhibit." 

The exhibit consists of ten panels, each with its own theme. The original Emmett Till Exhibit was developed from an oral history project conducted by Henry Outlaw with the Delta State University's Delta Center for Culture & Learning and was sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council. Due to the popularity of the original exhibit, the traveling exhibit was later developed.

The murder of Emmett Till served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. Till-Mobley insisted that the casket containing Till's body be left open so, in her words, "The world could see what they did to my baby." Thousands of people viewed Till's body and photographs of his corpse circulated around the country, exposing the racism in the Jim Crow South.

On March 29, President Joe Biden signed into law the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which makes lynching a federal hate crime. 

More:A 'critical step toward justice': Senate passes the Emmett Till Antilynching Act

People will get a closer view and feeling of how the country was impacted by the trial that shaped the course of American history, Powell said. 

"It really depicts how society was back then because it was horrible," Powell said. "It was a horrible and inhumane act of injustice to a human. The exhibit chronicles what the family and the community went through with that trial, but now to finally getting the Antilynching Law passed." 

The Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Heritage Museum is located at 1501 Chennault Park Drive in Monroe and is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children 17 and under. 

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