Mamie channeled Rosebud Lee in insisting that the remains of her once-beautiful boy be on display in an open casket, so that the whole world had to reckon with what the State of Mississippi had done to him, through the hands of those soulless men. For three days, beginning September 3, 1955, nearly fifty thousand people jammed the streets in front of A. A. Rayner Funeral Home, where Till’s mangled body was displayed under a Plexiglas cover. It was said that nearly one in five of those who passed through the building for the viewing required medical intervention, as women fainted and staggered
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