In 1923, Wiley Carthan left Mississippi on the Illinois Central Railroad, heading for Chicago. He settled just outside the Chicago city limits in the town of Argo, Illinois. Argo’s real name was Summit, but the largest corn processing plant in the…

We usually think of Emmett Till as a Chicagoan. He did live on the segregated South Side during his last few years, but most of his life was spent in Summit, Illinois, a tight-knit industrial community of 12,000 people just outside of Chicago.…

In November 1951, ten-year old Emmett, his mother Mamie Till-Bradley, and her new husband Pink Bradley moved into a two-flat home in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. Less than two years earlier, Mrs. Till and Emmett had left…