He was only 14—a Chicago boy with a charming smile. He was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, and in a local store he spoke to the owner’s wife, a white woman. In 1955, in the Deep South, a Black male couldn’t look at a white woman without repercussions. To this day, no one is sure what was said. But there’s no doubt about the outcome. Emmett Till was abducted from the home of his great uncle, beaten, mutilated, shot in the head, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. A 14-year-old. The sickening crime rocked America, shamed Mississippi, and fueled the civil rights movement. The murderers were acquitted but it ruined their lives anyway, karmic justice. Had Till not been killed, he would be 85 this year. With photographs covering the 70 years that Till missed, this exhibition at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Photography implicitly asks, “Have we made good on the sacrifice of his life?” Among the photographers represented are Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Dawoud Bey, Teju Cole, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Carrie Mae Weems, and Stephen Marc. —Laura Jacobs