Bronzeville art exhibit reimagines Emmett Till's life ahead of what would have been his 85th birthday

The story of his brutal murder was a catalyst for the civil rights movement, and the advocacy of his mother cemented his legacy. Emmett Till would have turned 85 years old next week.

Several Chicago artists are commemorating the birthday that could have been with a new exhibit on the South Side: "From Memory to Movement: Emmett at 85."

At the Blanc Gallery in Bronzeville, Raymond Thomas curates an exhibit that poses a question: what if?

"I thought about where we were and where we could be," he said.

What if a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till had the chance to grow up?

"Without his death, where would we be?" Thomas said.

What if Till hadn't become a martyr for a movement?

"They think of the tragedy and something of his courageous mother's decision to show him in that state after he was brutally lynched," Thomas said.

The exhibit features works by Chicago artists, celebrating the life Till lived and acknowledging the years stolen from him.

"Him as a child from Chicago; just a normal boy, a normal kid," Thomas said.

Till was a kid no different than high schoolers from the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley Institute's summer academy, who got a tour of the exhibit from Thomas, who is one of their teachers.

"This is my imagining a different place, and a different time, and a different Emmett," he said.

One of his pieces depicts Till as a grandfather who would be 85 this month. Each face in the piece is a collage of multiple faces.

"It's all of us. Emmett Till is every Black boy," Thomas said.

Till's legacy inspires artists to pick up a paintbrush, a camera, a mound of clay, even piles of dirt.

"One of our artists, Bernard Williams, literally went to Mississippi and harvested dirt from the places that Emmett was to make his art," Thomas said.

No matter the medium, artists hope to humanize a boy whose story will never be lost to history.