Artist Creates ‘Wooden Quilt’ From Pieces of Emmett Till’s South Side Home
New Orleans-based artist Jean-Marcel St. Jacques drew on centuries of Black spiritual and sustainable practices to create the artwork, which will be displayed at a Woodlawn museum honoring the teen and his mother.
Jean-Marcel St. Jacques and Michelle Renee Perkins (in red hat) work to finish the wooden quilt slated for the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley House Museum on Aug. 21, 2024.,Maxwell Evans/Block Club Chicago
WOODLAWN — There was a point when Emmett Till was too painful a subject for artist Jean-Marcel St. Jacques.
“Emmett Till is the most famous story in the history of American civil rights, but especially for Black men, we don’t want to hear about that s**t,” the New Orleans-based sculptor and storyteller said. “We seen the picture. We know what happened. Anytime I’d hear that name, I’d get mad.”
But much like the hoodoo practice of “harming and healing” that inspires St. Jacques’ art, his latest work — a “quilt” made from pieces of Till’s family home in Woodlawn — takes the anger he and millions of Black people have felt over Till’s 1955 lynching and alchemizes it into a statement of beauty and triumph.
The large wooden quilt, completed days before the 69th anniversary of Till’s lynching, will be displayed at the future Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley House Museum, 6427 S. St. Lawrence Ave.
“This particular [artwork] is about overcoming that grief and focusing on the strength of his mother, his grandmother, who bought the house, and your people that came out here and bought property that became a foundation for folks to establish a Northern presence,” St. Jacques said.
The artwork can be a point of entry for Woodlawn residents, and youth in particular, to learn more about their community’s pivotal role in Black history, said Naomi Davis, founder and CEO of Blacks in Green.
The environmental nonprofit is restoring the Till family home into the museum, garden and theater which are set to open in 2026.
“We will be continuing to use [the quilt] as a teaching tool,” Davis said. “We’ll have all kinds of art pieces and collections in there, and the children will come … . They will learn and create rites of passage.”
An overhead view of the wooden quilt created by Jean-Marcel St. Jacques for the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley House Museum, using construction debris from the Till home’s renovation. Credit: Maxwell Evans/Block Club Chicago
Till, a 14-year-old Chicagoan killed by white supremacists in Mississippi, lived with his mother on the second floor of the St. Lawrence Avenue home. His uncle and cousins lived on the first floor.
Till visited a general store owned by Roy Bryant in Money, Mississippi, on Aug. 24, 1955. Bryant’s wife Carolyn Bryant accused Till of whistling at her. Days later, Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped and tortured Till before shooting him in the head and throwing his body in the Tallahatchie River.
The quilt made for the museum uses scrap wood and other debris from renovations at the Till family home, which Davis would not allow to be thrown away, she said.
Left: The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley House, 6427 S. St. Lawrence Ave. in Chicago. Right: Emmett Till at 13, on Christmas Day 1954. Credit: Bob Chiarito/Block Club Chicago; Wikipedia
St. Jacques also plans to create 14 smaller quilts using the decades-old materials, which will be auctioned off to fund the Till museum’s development. The number reflects Till’s 14 years of life, St. Jacques said.
Working with pieces of the Till home was a spiritual experience, said Michelle Renee Perkins, an artist and associate art professor at Malcolm X College. She’s a friend of St. Jacques’ who collaborated with him on the quilt.
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