The Newberry Library celebrates Black History Month through Emmett Till exhibit

Loyola University Chicago professor Elliott Gorn presented “Emmett Till:  Why His Story Still Matters” to a few dozen people Feb. 11 at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St.

Till was a 14-year-old Chicago native who was tortured and murdered in 1955 by the husband and brother-in-law of a young, white woman who claimed Till whistled at her at a Mississippi drug store.

It took an all-white jury an hour to find the two defendants innocent of the kidnapping and murder of Till in 1955.

Gorn talks about the correlation between Till’s trial and judicial inequalities with those of Trayvon Martin and Laquan McDonald’s case.