Burr Oak Scandal Throws Till Museum Plans in Limbo

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 11, 2011 1:50PM

With former Burr Oak Cemetery manager Carolyn Towns sentenced to prison Friday for her part in the grave reselling scandal that rocked the historic African American cemetery, the Sun-Times reports on the now uncertain status of a proposed museum at Burr Oak for Emmett Till.

Till, whose 1955 murder in Mississippi was one of the watershed moments of the Civil Rights movement, was buried in the Alsip graveyard by his mother Mamie. When the Burr Oak scandal broke, one of the indelible images of the grave reselling scheme was the discovery of Till's glass-topped casket in a storage shed, housing a family of opossum. (the casket has since been sent to the Smithsonian Institute, where it will become part of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Burr Oak workers sifting through paperwork found brochures of a proposed "Emmett Till Historical Museum and Mausoleum." It's assumed that Towns planned to build a tribute to Till at Burr Oak and promised that to Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley. But it's unknown how much money was collected towards that goal or, given the extent of the grave desecration at Burr Oak, if Towns was even sincere in following through on this.

The Sun-Times also notes in their story that there aren't many tributes to Till in his hometown. Only a stretch of 71st Street is named in honor of Till, while in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi the courthouse where an all-white jury acquitted two white men of Till's murder is being restored to honor him.