If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground

About the Exhibition

What if Emmett Till lived? What if he had returned home still a child, alive and free? Emmett Till could have turned 85 years old this year, had he survived beyond boyhood. In the major new exhibition If Emmett Till Lived, opening on September 10, 2026, at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, and in a freestanding book published by MoCP and DelMonico Books•D.A.P., curator, author, and scholar Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis asks the public to envision the full life Till could have experienced, and what that life could have meant for our own, as evoked by the images of more than 70 photographers.

Through pictures drawn from the Museum’s outstanding collection, viewers will be able to imagine, and meditate on, the roughly 70 years that Till missed—a number matching the photographers represented, from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks to Dawoud Bey, Teju Cole, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Carrie Mae Weems, and Stephen Marc. Here are railroad lines that might have taken Till not only from Chicago to Mississippi but on journeys from coast to coast, daily encounters he might have had on neighborhood streets and playgrounds, and civil rights struggles witnessed and joined. Here, too, are meals shared, marriage and fatherhood celebrated, and events that might have brought Emmett Till joy and wonder, whether from Michael Jordan leading the Chicago Bulls to six championships or Barack Obama winning the White House.

Why create this show and publication now?” Sarah Lewis asked. “Because more than seventy years after Emmett Till’s death, we are still asking, have we made good on the sacrifice of his life? We should not have to ask this question. This show and the book that is its counterpart should not have to exist—and that is why I felt called to make them. They claim the ground of Till’s untaken journey from Mississippi back to Chicago. His life is the epitome of the question we still grapple with today: Who has a right to the ground, to claim the right to stand? This exhibition and book are a creative monument to the life that Till—that anyone, any black or brown boy—has a right to live.”

Natasha Egan, Executive Director, Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Karen Irvine, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, said, “This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, where issues of justice have long been a core part of our identity. In this tradition, we are honored to present Sarah Lewis’s project If Emmett Till Lived, which shifts our attention from the horrific image associated with Till’s murder to the potential of life. Allowing works from our collection to float freely, unburdened from specific interpretation, Sarah Lewis constructs a lyrical meditation that reanimates Till’s presence and invites us to feel the weight of what was lost.”

The accompanying book If Emmett Till Lived: A Creative Monument, edited by Sarah Lewis, features photographs included in the exhibition and original essays by Lonnie G. Bunch III, Vinson Cunningham, Paul Farber, Sherrilyn Ifill, Sarah Lewis, Siddhartha Mitter, Jeneé Osterheldt, and Patrick Weems. The book is published by MoCP and DelMonico Books•D.A.P. in collaboration with Sarah Lewis. The book design is by Miko McGinty.

Artists featured in If Emmett Till Lived include a cousin of Till, professional photographer Lance Omar Thurman, represented by his image of the remains of Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi.

The project also includes Hanif Abdur-Rahim, Jody Ake, Harold Allen, Stephen Althouse, Tom Arndt, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Uta Barth, Endia Beal, Dawoud Bey, Jay Boersma, Christian Boltanski, Clarissa Bonet, Phil Borges, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Jack Bridges, Sheila Pree Bright, Christopher Burkett, Patty Carroll, Keith Carter, William Carter, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Peter Cochrane, Teju Cole, Edward Curtiss Colver, Kenn Cook Jr., Barbara Crane, Paul D’Amato, Paul Dahlquist, Bruce Davidson, Tim Davis, Lloyd DeGrane, Adam Ekberg, Paul Elledge, Elliott Erwitt, Terry Evans, Nona Faustine, Scott Fortino, Steven Foster, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Russell K. Frederick, Leonard Freed, Lee Friedlander, Daniel Castro Garcia, Gretchen Garner, Meg Gerken, Harness Hamese, Lyle Ashton Harris, Todd Hido, Milton J. Hinton, Earlie Hudnall Jr., Hyers + Mebane (Martin Hyers + William Mebane), James Iska, Ron Jude, Michael Kenna, Lewis Kostiner, Dorothea Lange, Jason Lazarus, An-My Lê, Annie Leibovitz, Danny Lyon, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Stephen Marc, Diana Matar, Aspen Mays, Cecil McDonald Jr., Roger Minick, Natasha Leonie Moustache, Kenji Nakahashi, Mario Cravo Neto, Carlos Javier Ortiz, Esther Parada, Gordon Parks, Antonio Perez, Alayna Pernell, Jack Perno, Alexis Peskine, Cara Phillips, David Plowden, Marc PoKempner, Milton Rogovin, Walter Rosenblum, Whitten Sabbatini, Karen Savage, Victor Schrager, Sara Shamsavari, Arthur Shay, Anna Shteynshleyger, Marvin Joe Shuck, Guillaume Simoneau, Victor Skrebneski, Frank Stewart, Richard Terborg, Bob Thall, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, Charles Traub, Arthur Tress, Peter Turnley, Jerry N. Uelsmann, Carrie Mae Weems, and Helena Chapellín Wilson.

Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is guest curator of If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on America Ground.

Jessica Williams Stark serves as curatorial associate for the exhibition If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground.

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About Sarah Lewis

Sarah Lewis is founder of Vision & Justice, a publishing and research initiative for artists, scholars, and leaders seeking to examine the foundational role of visual culture in America’s representational democracy. She currently serves as the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

Through Vision & Justice, she has organized landmark public programs and convenings and founded the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture. She is the author or editor of more than 60 publications, including The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, winner of the American Book Award; the best-selling The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery; Carrie Mae Weems; and a special “Vision & Justice” issue of Aperture. In addition, her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books, among others, and she was named as one of TIME magazine’s 2026 “Closers” in recognition of her work toward achieving greater equality in the United States. Before joining the faculty of Harvard, she held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Modern, London, and served as a critic at Yale University School of Art. She serves on the boards of Thames & Hudson Inc. and the journal Civil War History.

Support for this exhibition

MoCP is supported by Columbia College Chicago, MoCP Advisory Board, Museum Council, individuals, private and corporate foundations, and government grants.

Lead support is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Henry Luce Foundation. This project is partially supported with funding from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art and the Vision & Justice Fund through Sarah Lewis.

MoCP acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council and is the recipient of a CityArts grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Impact Fund for Photography, a museum endowment.

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