If Emmett Till Lived: A Creative Monument

This book honors the life, death and legacy of Emmett Till through a kaleidoscope of 20th and 21st century photography. Both a reckoning with the past and a probing investigation into the current state of American life, If Emmett Till Lived presents a fictionalized narrative of the life Emmett Till might have lived had he returned home in 1955, rather than being murdered at the age of fourteen while visiting family in Mississippi, a victim of the racial terror of Jim Crow rule. Curated by writer and scholar Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, the nearly 200 photographs from dozens of artists are drawn from the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Her selection of works recalls small but not insignificant moments in Till’s childhood as well as larger themes from his life’s unfulfilled promise. Collectively, Lewis’ selections present a poetic and profound photographic account of quotidian moments from a childhood and adulthood unrealized. These photographs speak to the absence of images of Till’s life beyond the age of fourteen. In filling that void, the exhibition more broadly addresses the lasting impact of racialized violence in the United States across generations, ultimately offering a framework for considering how freedom is secured on American ground.

Edited by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis. Text by Lonnie G. Bunch III, Vinson Cunningham, Sherrilyn Ifill, Paul M. Farber, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Siddhartha Mitter, Jeneé Osterheldt, Patrick Weems. Additional contributions by Dr. Marvel Parker and Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., along with Chelsea Clinton, Rhea L. Combs, Ava DuVernay, Alicia Garza, John Legend, Brent Leggs, Franklin Leonard, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, RaMell Ross, Amy Sherald, Hank Willis Thomas, and Deborah Willis.