Emmett Till’s family visits Buffalo to discuss racism

Buffalo Resilience Center Community Health Center will lead an event Saturday focused on the ongoing fight against racism and white supremacy.

“Facing History: The Revisit” will feature family members of Emmett Till, the victim of a lynching by white supremacists in 1955, an incident that helped launch the civil rights movement in the years that followed .

Till, a black teenager in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era, was accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family’s grocery store. These events are a matter of controversy, but not what happened after the allegation. Till was kidnapped, tortured and lynched by Bryant’s family. His murder and subsequent acquittal of the perpetrators brought attention to long-standing violence against black people in America.

The free, public event will focus on the impact of Till’s lynching and its relevance today. The related discussion will explore ways to achieve racial justice and healing.

Amberly Carter and Magnolia Carter, members of Till’s family, and Marcus D. Watson, associate professor of Africana studies at SUNY Buffalo State University, will share their personal experiences and insights, followed by a question-and-answer session.

WKBW-TV Channel 7 host, advocate and entrepreneur Mercedes Wilson will moderate the event, which takes place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Buffalo State Campbell Student Union, 1300 Elmwood Ave.