After Till’s disfigured body was recovered, it was shipped back to Chicago. At the Illinois Central train station, Mamie Till Bradley dropped to her knees in anguished prayer upon seeing the wrapped bundle containing her son’s remains. “Oh God, my boy, my only boy,” she wailed, filling the hall with her wrenching cries. She decided that his death would not go unnoticed. The body was placed in an open casket at the Roberts Temple of the Church of God in Christ at 4021 South State Street. For the next five days,
