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Emmett Till is someone that we know through documentaries, writings, photos, and inadequate history lessons. Open Casket: Philosophical Meditations on the Lynching of Emmett Till draws us unsettlingly and lovingly close to Emmett Till, and to his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. George Yancy’s and A. Todd Franklin’s breathtaking new anthology brings us face-to-face with the disquieting sorrow of Black death, and the unsettling reality that Emmett Till does not rest in peace.

Published to mark the 70th anniversary of Emmett Till’s death, Open Casket is a potent reminder that bearing witness to the horrors of white supremacy is a historically rooted collective grieving process that has particular resonances for Black people — and anyone with a moral conscience. Each essay upends the attempted erasure of the horrors wrought on a Black 14-year-old child by white adult men and the system designed to protect them. This collection raises questions that complicate our thinking about Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, victimhood, the politics of refusal, Black maternal militancy, Black agency, and more.

This book attests that for Black people living in an anti-Black society, our mourning and mournability are part of our story, but they are not the full story. Readers are invited to bear witness and tarry with Mamie Till-Mobley as she rejects suggestions to keep her only child’s funeral private and hidden from public view. Her act of Black maternal resistance connects us to the slave ship and bridges the gap between 1955 Jim Crow Mississippi and today.

While it rigorously interrogates the past, Open Casket illuminates the present with unflinching and piercing insight. The text unfolds with profound clarity and care. While many people have moved on because they can, our collective psychological and emotional wounds remain tender. We see ourselves in Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley precisely because we know that no amount of Black suffering and Black death has been enough to unsettle white supremacy.

Yancy and Franklin’s book is conceptually rich, and analytically sharp. It honors Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley by calling on all of us to see and to act.In the interview that follows the authors discuss the psychological terror of Emmett Till’s murder, the politics of Black maternal grief, unmasking the grotesque as a process of truth-telling, bearing witness, and more. Open Caskett honors Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley by inviting us to engage with death and grief as communal, political, and philosophical processes while stirring us toward action.

Kim Wilson: Todd, you write about Mamie-Till Mobley’s strength and the unbearable pain that she must have felt when she saw what white racists did to her son, Emmet (aka Bobo, Bo). Can you say more about the collective psychological weight that Emmett’s murder has placed on communities that claim him? Relatedly, how does the book help to complicate our thinking about the strength required by Mamie Till-Mobley, and by extension, all Black mothers that have had their children stolen from them by white supremacy?

A. Todd Franklin: The image chosen for the book’s cover speaks volumes about the psychological weight carried in the aftermath of Emmett Till’s murder. In one sense, it offers a meditation on erasure. There is a mother, and there are images of a mother and her son; and yet, the son himself is not there — in his stead is a casket. As framed, he has been physically taken from us, much as our children and loved ones are taken from our own communities by the violence of white supremacy.

What remains visible is the pain of such loss. The image also foregrounds the psychological terror of being susceptible to erasure: Insofar as one can look at the images inside the casket and see oneself, one confronts the terrifying prospect of sharing in Emmett’s demise. Powerfully, though, the image also frames a refusal to be nullified. Emmett was more than a victim of white supremacist violence — he was a beloved son, and the image viscerally captures and relays his being as such in virtue of both the photographic evidence on display in his casket and the gut-wrenching reaction of his mother as she is forced to grapple with him lying in it.

Such juxtapositions were not there by accident. Mamie Till-Mobley expressly chose to have her son publicly lie in repose in an open casket so as to complicate and confound the white supremacist logics that led to his murder. In doing so, she exemplified an unparalleled strength and determination to refuse to allow that which took his life to rob him of rightful regard for his human dignity. Many Black mothers, yourself included, find similarly challenging ways to complicate and confound the white supremacist logics, practices, and systems that continue to rob us of our children.

This is a book that merits care-full reading. I found myself putting it down every few pages to make room for the feelings that arose. I wanted to honor the space between the task at hand (reading the book), and a mother’s piercing call for us to see what they did to her beautiful son. What insights do the contributors offer us into understanding the relationship between private and public grief?

Franklin: I’m grateful that you centered care. Indeed, the call is to read this text with care — not simply with sympathy, but with resolve. Put plainly, it is a call to care enough to act, individually and collectively, in ways that press society to acknowledge........

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