'Let the world see': Church where 100,000 saw Emmett Till's open casket is now on a list of US endangered historic places

The church where an estimated 100,000 people viewed Emmett Till's open casket was listed among America's most endangered historic places Thursday.

The funeral and extended visitation for Till held September 3-6, 1955, at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago's South Side Bronzeville neighborhood were "pivotal events in American history," according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a D.C.-based nonprofit which included the site on its list of endangered sites this year.

The church is listed as a Chicago Landmark but has severe structural issues.

Wheeler Parker Jr., Till's cousin and the last living witness to the events of 1955, told USA TODAY he hoped that putting the church on the list would draw more attention to the landmark.

A 'small but necessary step': Emmett Till's Chicago home granted preliminary landmark status.

Parishioners gather for choral practice at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, Wednesday, Nov.

Rayner Funeral home in Bronzeville, historian Dave Tell writes in the Emmett Till Memory Project, a website and app that offers virtual tours of key landmarks in Till’s life.

A large crowd gathers outside the Roberts Temple Church of God In Christ in Chicago, Ill., Sept.

Robert’s Temple Church of God in Christ underwent a major renovation in 1991 and was listed as a Chicago Landmark in 2006.

The church was founded in 1916 and is known as the "mother of all of the Churches of God in Christ in Illinois," according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Keith Beauchamp, whose documentary, "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till," helped inspire the Justice Department to reopen the Till case in 2004, said he was troubled to see the church fall into disrepair.

"It is quite disturbing considering how much a landmark that church is for Chicago and the symbolism of what it stands for.".

This undated family photograph taken in Chicago, shows Mamie Till Mobley and her son, Emmett Till, whose lynching in 1955 became a catalyst for the civil rights movement. (Photo: AP)

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks unanimously voted to approve preliminary status for the home, where Till moved with his mother and her husband when he was ten years old

"As our country goes through a painful soul-searching in reaction to the murders of George Floyd, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and so many others, granting this dignity and reverence to the place where Emmett Till was raised is a small but necessary step toward national acknowledgment of the violence that has long defined the Black experience in America," the Society of Architectural Historians Heritage Conservation Committee said in a letter of support for the landmark designation

Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, an organization that supported the campaign to designate the church as a landmark and is working with the Till family, said he hopes the home earns full landmark designation by February of next year for Black History Month