For M.O.M.S - Sisterspeak - Mamie Till-Mobley - Obituary

Ebony, May, 2003 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

IT'S an exclusive club, yet no one wants to be a member. In this club, all the members go through a wrenching and painful initiation--in public. It involves secret meetings with men and women in black and whispered rites and prayers. Flowers and potato salad often play a part and its members sometimes ride in long, shiny cars. And once the pledging process is complete and you are in this group, your life is never the same again. For you have a choice whether to curl up and let the group enfold you or to fight to keep others out of the group.

If you didn't know better, this might sound like a social club or a sorority. It's not. This group is the mothers of murdered sons, really murdered children, and they recently lost their un-elected president, Mamie Till-Mobley, who turned her rage and grief at the wanton murder of her only son, Emmett Till, into a lifelong crusade with a dual purpose--to keep his memory alive and to better the lives of Black children.

Those of us who grew up in Emmett's shadow are forever in the debt of the small, feisty woman who everyone called "Mother Mobley." When 14-year-old Emmett Till of Chicago was dragged from his bed and murdered in Mississippi in the summer of 1955, her courageous decision to let the world view his mangled and battered body in an open-casket funeral helped mobilize a fighting spirit in Black people nationally that helped spark and fuel the Civil Rights Movement.

Few people know of what happened after that. In 1989 Till-Mobley gave a speech during the Southern Poverty Law Center's dedication of the Civil Rights Memorial of Montgomery, Ala. Till is honored as one of the 40 martyrs of the modern Civil Rights Movement. "When my eyes were a fountain of tears," she said, "the realization came that Emmett's death was not a personal experience for me to hug to myself and weep, but it was a worldwide awakening that would change the course of history. Emmett's death was the impetus for the Civil Rights Movement in America. It was also the spark that ignited unrest in all the world where injustices were being perpetrated."

When Rosa Parks refused to get up from her bus seat, Parks said she was thinking of Emmett Till. As a child during the 1960s, whenever I would visit my grandparents in Alabama, the name of Emmett Till was invoked. We weren't allowed to walk down the road to the candy store alone; we weren't allowed to go anywhere alone down South after Emmett Till. I remember distinctly hearing my grandfather telling my grandmother to watch the Northern grandbabies closely "because we don't want to have no Emmett Till mess down here."

When Mother Mobley died peacefully earlier this year, she was regal splendor in all white. The contrast to her only son's funeral could not have been starker. Still fresh in most mourners' minds was the image of the grieving mother crumpled over Till's casket while more than 50,000 people streamed by in shocked disbelief. The distraught mother had demanded an open casket and Jet magazine ran a picture of his mangled face, exposing Mississippi's shame to the world. "Open it up, let the people see what they did to my boy," she said then, her face wet with tears. She went on to turn her mother's grief into personal transformation, returning to school at age 33, and receiving her bachelor's degree in elementary education in three and a half years. She was a Chicago Public Schools teacher for 26 years, but she didn't stop going to school. She went on to earn a master's degree and began work on a doctorate.

She worked with children at her Chicago church, founding the Emmett Till Players, who specialized in reciting speeches by Dr. King. "My personal peace has come through helping boys and girls reach beyond the ordinary and strive for the extraordinary," she said. And she left some advice for mothers who can still wrap their arms around their sons and daughters. "We must teach our children to weather the hurricanes of life, pick up the pieces and rebuild. We must impress [upon] our children," she continued, "that even when troubles rise to 7.1 on life's Richter scale, they must be anchored so deeply that though they sway, they will not topple."

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley did not topple, and today's mothers cannot topple. Her motto, imprinted on her funeral program, was concise: "Life is fragile--Handle With Prayer." Bang the gavel; the house is now open for reports from mothers and mothers-to-be.

Happy Mother's Day, Mother Mobley!