EXHIBITION RECEPTION: IF EMMETT TILL LIVED

In conjunction with the 2026 Filter Photo Festival, join us for a reception at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Catch up with friends and colleagues and view the current exhibition at the MoCP, If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground.

Immediately following the reception, join us at Ferguson Lecture Hall at 7:00 PM for our Featured Evening Lecture by Tarrah Krajnak.

If Emmett Till Lived, curated by 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.

Image: David Plowden