Trinity Episcopal Church
Manassas, Virginia

We welcome all in the celebration.
Celebrating the experience of God's love,
Celebrating the diversity of humanity,
Celebrating life's blessing.
Celebrating life eternal.

Millennium Development Goals
T3 - Twenties and Thirties @ Trinity

Mamie Till-Mobley

This past week Mamie Till-Mobley died quietly in Chicago. The moment of her death went fairly unnoticed; the fact of her death caused a great, sad remembering to take place. In August of 1955 her 14-year old son, Emmet Till, was beaten and murdered for speaking to a young white woman.

You see, young Emmet was an African-American and this was Mississippi in the years before desegregation. At her insistence the coffin her son was laid to rest in remained open for the public to view. This brave choice on the part of a grieving mother helped to galvanize a shocked America into action against hatred and bigotry, violence and lawlessness.

Years later, this same mother wrote a book about her son, their story, our American journey through desegregation. Of this book she wrote, “I focused on my son while I considered this book. . . . The result is in your hands. . . . I am experienced, but not cynical. . . . I am hopeful that we all can be better than we are. I've been brokenhearted, but I still maintain an oversized capacity for love.”

Reading her words, I was profoundly moved. Is this, I wondered, how God might feel as we hold the bible in our hands? Is this the deep sadness and overwhelming love God feels about and for us? Did we do a terrible violence to a child of God, killing an innocent young man for imagined sins?