Mamie Till

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley
Till-Mobley during a interview outside the courthouse after Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted for the murder of her son Emmett Till, September 23, 1955.
Born	Mamie Elizabeth Carthan (1921-11-23)November 23, 1921 Webb, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	January 6, 2003(2003-01-06) (aged 81) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Nationality	African American
Education	Argo Community High School Chicago Teacher's College Loyola University Chicago
Known for	Mother of Chicago teenager Emmett Till who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955.
Spouse(s)	Louis Till (m. 1940–45) (1 child; Emmett Till) [Pink Bradley (m. 1951–52) (divorced) Gene Mobley (m. 1957–99) (his death)

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley (born Mamie Elizabeth Carthan; November 23, 1921 – January 6, 2003) was a Civil Rights activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, who was murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, at the age of 14, after being accused for flirting with a white cashier woman at the grocery store. For her son's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."

Born Mamie Elizabeth Carthan on November 23, 1921, in a small town near Webb, Mississippi, she was the only child of John and Alma Carthan. Wanting to leave the South, in 1922 her father moved to Argo, Illinois, near Chicago, shortly after her birth. In Argo, a small industrial town, he found work at the Argo Corn Products Refining Company. Alma Carthan joined her husband in January 1924, bringing two-year-old Mamie with her. They settled in a predominantly black and close-knit neighborhood in Argo. When Mamie was 13, her parents divorced. Devastated, she threw herself into her school work and excelled in her studies. Alma had high hopes for her only child, and although Alma Carthan said that in her day "the girls had one ambition -- to get married", she had encouraged Mamie in her studies. Even though very few of Mamie's peers even finished high school, Mamie was the first black student to make the "A" Honor roll and only the fourth black student to graduate from the predominantly white Argo Community High School.

Aged 18, she met a young man from New Madrid, Missouri named Louis Till. He worked at the Argo Corn Company, was an amateur boxer, and was popular with women. Her parents disapproved, thinking the charismatic Till was "too sophisticated" for their daughter. At her mother's insistence, she broke off their courtship. But the persistent Till won out, and they married on October 14, 1940. Both were 18 years old. Their only child, Emmett Louis Till, was born 9 months later. They separated in 1942 after Mamie found out he had been unfaithful, and later choked her to unconsciousness, to which she responded by throwing scalding water at him. Eventually she obtained a restraining order against him. After violating this repeatedly, a judge forced him to choose between enlistment in the U.S. Army or facing jail time. Choosing the former, he joined the Army in 1943.