Given the nature of Emmett Till’s death and its clear message about Blackness in America, art that aims to honor his legacy aways carries a certain weight of responsibility. That’s more evident than ever now; a new opera is under scrutiny this week for allegedly centering a white lead and white guilt instead of Till’s and his family’s plight.
The show, “Emmett Till, A New American Opera,” will be performed at John Jay College's Gerald W. Lynch Theatre in New York City tonight and tomorrow. Synopses about the show, posted everywhere from Playbill.com to various social media accounts, describe the project as a story about the death of Till, a 14-year-old boy from Mississippi who was violently murdered in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Till’s body was mutilated and flung into the Tallahatchie River, where it was found days later and became a persisting and powerful symbol of the horrors of Jim Crow and American racism.
