Obfuscation, the Rhetoric of Martyrdom, and the Emmett Till Statue in Greenwood, Mississippi

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of obfuscation as a useful category for public memory scholarship that expands our understanding of the memory building practices associated with memorials to lynching victims. Using the Emmett Till Statue installed in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 2022 as its exemplar artifact, the article shows how its placement and form offer a comforting narrative of sacrifice and martyrdom that obfuscates the traumatic reality that Till was a victim whose short life ended when two white men lynched him.

Keywords:

• Emmett Till
• Civil Rights Tourism
• Civil Rights Movement
• Public Memory
• Lynching

Acknowledgement

The authors thank P. Renée Foster for assisting with their fieldwork and reviewing early drafts of the manuscript. They also thank the staff at the Greenwood-Leflore Public Library for locating primary source material used in this essay. Finally, they thank the anonymous reviewers and editor for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a detailed historical account of Emmett Till’s trip to visit family in the Mississippi Delta in August 1955, his kidnapping and lynching at the hands of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, and the trial in which both men were acquitted, see Anderson (2015).