The Memorial of Bravery and Courage

Drew MISSISSIPPI

Emmett Till’s upbringing in the southside of Chicago left him naïve to the ways of the Jim Crow South. His joyful and innocent presence disturbed the landscape of his motherland and threatened its status quo to such a point that it felt justified to destroy him. His unjust death would illuminate the reality “behind the cotton curtain,” as Myrlie Evers would say, and move the hearts of people around the country and globe. Even in his last moments of life, he would transform the life of an 18-yearold kid.

In Emmett’s story, the barn represents the apex of gruesome racial violence, but that same site is also the apex of incredible bravery. Emmett Till and Willie Reed did not know each other in life but were two young Black men, descendants of Mississippi, who became intrinsically linked on August 28, 1955.

Bestselling author and researcher, Dr. Brene Brown, affirms that all journeys of bravery require courage. She claims, “true courage comes [as a consequence of vulnerability] when we decide to take a risk without knowing the outcome. It means showing up and letting yourself be seen, despite the risk.” Willie Reed modeled Brown’s principals of bravery in those coming days and weeks as he journeyed through the Mississippi Delta before leaving his home for Emmett’s hometown of Chicago.

Brown says the opposite of true belonging is “fitting in.” As one who knew how to conform to the segregation systems in place for his and his family’s “safety,” Willie claimed in an interview that he did not feel the threat of lynching because he “know what he was supposed to do.” The first room of the memorial leads the visitor through a tight matrix of looming sound absorbing blocks to emphasis the silence expected of society to protect the white supremacy which was thought to be inherent in the Jim Crow South. Periodic stops provide more didactical information about its history, laws, and practices.

Despite the warnings to stay quiet by his own grandfather and guardian, Willie exemplified what Brown calls the willingness to betray others in order to be true to oneself. That road is often solitary and full of physical and emotional exposure. In room two, one journeys around the columns of light, ominous in a different way than the first room, that ends outside the building in a glass box exposing the visitor to the barn for the first time.

Brown’s mantra regarding bravery is the daily practice of choosing courage over comfort. Willie endured the suffering he heard and precariousness he sensed to hold a transformative testimony that could not save a life but could illuminate the truth. The barn is cut through with a bridge to be experienced, but not stomped over. To metaphorically accompany and hold Emmett’s pain as well as one’s own grief.

As a result of choosing courage over comfort, Willie was embraced and protected by the community of Mound Bayou just before and immediately following Emmett’s trial. In her leadership books Brown explains, “courage is contagious. A critical mass of brave leaders is the foundation of an intentionally courageous culture.” The fourth room in the memorial is an ode to the prosperous, joyful, self-determining all-Back town that nurtured great civil rights leaders, was named “the jewel of the Delta” by Teddy Roosevelt, and housed and provided armed escorts to Mamie Till-Mobley, the witnesses and Black press that covered the trial. His court appearances for both the murder and kidnapping of Emmett Till brought Willie into the arena of justice. Dr. Brown often quotes Teddy Roosevelt’s 1910 Paris speech, “Citizenship in a Republic,” which reads,

It is not the critic who counts... The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Though Emmett’s death has sadly not been the last life lost to racial discrimination, Willie’s bravery has also been repeated by those of other young people like then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier who chose to take out her phone on the way to the corner store, stand on a curb for nine minutes, and upload a video in the summer of 2020 that showed the truth to the world. Through that traumatic life changing experience, a year later she was able to reflect, “my video didn’t save George Floyd, but it put his murderer away and off the streets.”

Folks like Willie and Darnella are like all of us, flawed and imperfect. And yet they entered the arena. They risked vulnerability to be brave. They chose courage over comfort. And they modeled citizenship through their witness and testimony, which in turn sparked movements for greater social justice and racial reconciliation.

Since 1955 nearly all the surrounding houses have been torn down. It is nearly a miracle, that unintentionally the barn where Emmett Till was murdered survives and still stands. And it is an oxymoron that where such cruelty for humanity took place, great bravery hallowed those grounds. To break through the barn allows visitors to hold the pain and spirit of young Emmett as if at a gravesite.

If were not for the Black press during the Emmett Till trial, the truth and a proper investigation of the case would not have taken place. Following in the footsteps of these documentarians of history, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center’s Young Filmmaker Program will be able to host screenings of the aspiring high school student’s work. The theater will be contained in the fifth room representing Sumner and the act of testifying in public.