Till was tortured and most likely killed in the north end of this barn (the room at the right of the picture with the garage door). | Creator: Pablo Correa
This morning, Robin Roberts and Good Morning America reported on the Emmett Till Interpretive Center receiving a generous donation from acclaimed TV producer and screenwriter Shonda Rhimes to secure the Seed Barn in Sunflower County, Mississippi, where Emmett Till was brutally murdered in 1955. Preserving the barn is just the first step in turning this site of historic injustice into a site for healing and transformation. Now begins the work of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center to restore and interpret this sacred site.
On Good Morning America, Ms. Shonda Rhimes stated, “The murder of Emmett Till was the real fire that lit the civil rights movement in so many ways.” She continued, “I don’t think I’d ever known where it happened, where a child had been tortured and killed. I couldn’t let it go. I kept thinking about it for weeks afterwards. It changed the course of how I was thinking about my charitable giving. It changed the course of how I was even thinking about preserving history. It was powerful.”
Wright Thompson, author of the Atlantic article about the barn that caught Ms. Rhimes’ attention, stated, “I didn’t know a single thing about Emmett Till until I got to college and started taking classes. The school system down here is almost designed specifically so that knowledge doesn’t get passed… I’ve got two little girls who are going to grow up as Mississippians. And they need to know.”
“Thanks to the generosity of Ms. Rhimes and the tireless efforts of numerous organizations, a pivotal location in Emmett Till’s story, which ignited the Civil Rights Movement, is approaching permanent protection,” said Rev. Willie Williams, Chair of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center Board of Directors. “This barn, the site of a terrible crime against a child and a site intentionally obscured to protect those guilty, has been under private ownership for sixty years, serving merely as storage. But today, it moves closer to being rightfully preserved in American history, marking a transition from a place of profound suffering to one of healing and remembrance.”
Ms. Gloria Dickerson, Executive Director of We2Gether Creating Change and the operator of the Emmett Till Academy in Drew, MS, stated, “We are so thankful for Shonda Rhimes and her investment. However, this is just the beginning. This needs to be a springboard for racial healing for the community of Drew and for the nation. We hope that the preservation and restoration of the barn will not only secure the past but create the conditions for restorative justice for future generations.”