65 years ago today, Emmett Till—a 14-year-old Chicagoan—was kidnapped, tortured, and brutally murdered by two white men while visiting family in Mississippi. His body was dumped in a local river, where it surfaced three days later.

Due to the moral strength of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and the power of his community, Emmett's death didn't pass as a “routine” act of racial terrorism. It served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights movement that went on to transform our nation and inspire the world.

Over six decades later, our nation is still reckoning with racial violence and systemic racism as well as broader systems of injustice in the form of abject social and economic inequity.

Emmett Till’s murder & the work of Mamie Till-Mobley remind us that we must continue to strive for what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called a “revolution of values,” and remain driven to find real solutions and foundational change for our fellow residents & the nation we call home.