In the summer of 1955, Emmett Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy living in Chicago. He was murdered in August of that year while visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta. His murder sparked worldwide protests and fueled the rise of the American Civil Rights Movement. The Emmett Till Memory Project (ETMP) is a website and mobile application focused on preserving and protecting the sites in Chicago and Mississippi where the tragedy unfolded.

The ETMP mobile app uses GPS technology to guide users directly to the sites where the Till tragedy unfolded. For those who cannot visit in person, the website allows users anywhere in the world to virtually “visit” the sites of Till’s murder. Once a user visits a site (in person or virtually), the ETMP provides expert-vetted narratives, immersive media, augmented reality, 360-degree video, historic photographs, and links to archival documents.

The project’s most precious asset is the voice of Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. Eighty-five years old, Rev. Parker is Emmett Till’s cousin, his childhood best friend, and the last living eyewitness to the tragedy. The ETMP uses never-before-heard oral histories with Reverend Parker to provide an intimate, firsthand account of the murder that changed the course of American history. When users open the app or the website, or when they click on a particular site within the project, they will hear the voice of Reverend Parker describing the murder, remembering Emmett, or providing critical context.

Version 1 of the ETMP launched in February of 2016 on the Field Trip app produced by Niantic Labs. Version 2 of the ETMP launched in October 2019 on the CurateScape platform. We are currently creating Version 3 of the ETMP (this website is a soft launch of Version 3). When it is fully operational, Version 3 will incorporate augmented reality so users can see firsthand how time has eroded the sites of Till’s murder. It will leverage virtual reality so users anywhere in the world can “enter” critical sites in American history. And — above all — it will more fully utilize the voice of Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. The result will be an intimate and unforgettable engagement with American history.