CHICAGO -- The “what ifs” are many when it comes to social justice.

What if Emmett Till had lived and not been a catalyst to the Civil Rights Movement because the 14-year-old Chicagoan wasn’t murdered in Mississippi in 1955 by two white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman? What if his body, pulled from the Tallahatchie River, weighed down with a cotton gin fan, was not shown to the world in an open casket by his mother Mamie Till-Mobley? What if Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam were tried for murder charges, and not acquitted by an all-white jury — their confession to the killing instead sealing their fate? What if a warrant charging Carolyn Bryant Donham, the wife of Bryant and a witness to events leading up to the murder, was served to her? What if federal legislation had been put in place earlier than 2022 making lynching a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison?

These are all questions that come to mind when remembering that Emmett Till would have been 85 years old on July 25. Raymond Thomas, creative director of The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute, curated the exhibit “From Memory to Movement: Emmett at 85” at Bronzeville’s Blanc Gallery, bringing together 11 Black Chicago-based contemporary artists to produce works that speak to the humanity of Emmett Till and the social construct of the times we’re living in.

“It was like putting a band together… thinking how artists’ work talks to each other, and how my work aligns with theirs to have this jam session,” Thomas, a multidisciplinary artist, said. “We all have a connection to this legacy… everyone took their own personal journeys to find where they wanted to be with it.”

The artists featured include: Paul Branton, Roger Carter, Gerald Griffin, Candace Hunter, Tonika Lewis Johnson, Bryant Lamont, John Caleb Pendleton, Max Sansing, Norman Teague, Bernard Williams, Kevin Williams and Thomas.

Hunter’s past works have centered another murdered Black boy who captured the world’s attention: Trayvon Martin in 2012. Hunter’s work in this Till exhibit is a surrealist piece named “Emmett’s Last Night: Eternal Night” that captures Till’s last day of life, and rebirth in the casket — two kinds of deaths he suffered.

“I grew up in the shadow of Emmett Till,” she said. “The last school he attended was James McCosh (renamed Emmett Till Fine & Performing Arts School), which was two blocks from where I lived. He was murdered the year I was born, so all children in that vicinity grew up with that knowledge of that death. There’s no way we could escape that. At one time, my mother taught at McCosh, so he loomed large in all of our lives, and continues.”

John Caleb Pendleton, an Alabama transplant and proprietor of Planks and Pistils, a local florist company that uses flowers to highlight Black stories, created an abstract wood piece titled “Tallahatchie Chiffarobe,” a type of wardrobe adorned with images of brunia and lotus pods.

“Lotus represents new life or regeneration, and brunia, a South African flower, represents chivalry,” Pendleton said.

Given his background in woodworking, Pendleton liked the idea of a chifforobe, common in rural areas in the South, as a symbol of secrets, intimacy and privacy. Harper Lee uses a chifforobe as a literary device in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and since Pendleton is a Southern artist, and Emmett Till’s story is an American one that happened in the South, Pendleton created a small one for a child in the shape of Mississippi’s Sunflower County, where Till was killed.

“At the base of it, I wanted it to feel like this chifforobe got busted up and got pulled out of the Tallahatchie River, and inside of the chifforobe is Emmett,” Pendleton said. “Our origin in this country… we were brought here in pain and we made beauty from that — families and communities, even when they split us apart. You see photos and videos of Mamie Till-Mobley, and you can see a woman who faced her pain and still reclaimed her joy later in life. You have to talk about the hard stuff, because the more you talk about it, the more we can enjoy the joys of life as well.”

Thomas’ work is a mixed media collage entitled “We Love You Paw Paw,” which imagines a world where Till grows up in Chicago to have a full life with a high school sweetheart and three children. His family, including his mother, would grow old with him and get to celebrate Till’s (aka Paw-Paw’s) 85th birthday with smiles, hugs and laughter. Amid the joy, Thomas reflects on America’s continuing inability to consider the humanity and dignity of Black people. The fight against hate, inequality and injustice will continue, as will love and the spirit of radical joy, which Thomas says is our superpower straight from the motherland.

“This legacy is for everyone; that’s one thing I wanted to show in this work, to humanize, to show Emmett as a child, as a Black boy, and to show the joy of that too,” Thomas said. “Chicago is villainized. Black boys are villainized. But to show him as a kid, having fun with his friends… it’s beautiful. This show is not meditation and memorialization, it’s a celebration of his life.”

If you go

“From Memory To Movement: Emmett at 85″ is part of the Till Institute’s “Till Life Matters Initiative,” a series of programs for “Emmett Till: The Pursuit of Happiness” in recognition of Emmett Till’s 85th birthday. The exhibit runs through July 25 at Blanc Gallery, 4445 S. Martin Luther King Drive, more information at blancchicago.com

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