SouthTalks: Listening to Mississippi: Displaying the Defaced Emmett Till Historical Marker at the Smithsonian 

Nancy Bercaw presents “Listening to Mississippi: Displaying the Defaced Emmett Till Historical Marker at the Smithsonian.”

In 2019, two Smithsonian curators spent several weeks in Mississippi to see if they could ethically display the defaced Emmett Till marker in Washington, D.C.  After listening to culture workers and learning from Tallahatchie County residents, they co-curated an exhibit with their Mississippi partners titled “Reckoning With Remembrance: History, Injustice, and the Murder of Emmett Till.”  The exhibit process reflects the ethos of the museum’s Center for Restorative History that builds on the principles of restorative justice to redress historical harms.

Nancy Bercaw is a curator and the deputy director for the Center for Restorative History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH).  She came to NMAH after curating the landmark Slavery and Freedom exhibition at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016.  At NMAH, her work focuses on creating space for histories excluded from the national narrative.  Her recent exhibits include Girlhood (It’s complicated) and Reckoning with Remembrance: History, Injustice, and the Murder of Emmett Till.  She taught at UM for 15 years before becoming a public historian.