Vision & Justice
What if Emmett Till Lived?
Designing and building the website for the exhibition and book curated by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, bringing together iconic photographs, curated essays, and reflections from civic and cultural leaders.
If Emmett Till Lived, an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) at Columbia College Chicago and a freestanding book, asks us to imagine the full life he was denied, and what that life would have required of us all. The project is curated and written by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, founder of Vision & Justice and John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African-American studies at Harvard University. She worked in collaboration with Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., Till’s cousin, best friend, and the last living witness to his abduction.
Madeo partnered with Vision & Justice to design and build the digital home for the project. Built on Webflow, the site needed to bring the exhibition, the book, and the voices of its contributors together in one place. The goal is for visitors to the site to take part in the act of imagining, as a way to honor the life he deserved but was denied.
- Information Architecture
- Content Strategy
- Art Direction
- UX/UI Design
- Web Development
- Webflow Site Build
- Quality Assurance
There is not one photograph of Emmett Till in the exhibition. Instead, other children, fathers, friends, and kin stand in for the life that should have been possible. So, we let these photographs lead. The homepage opens on the same photograph that graces the book’s cover, and poses the project’s central question before anything else. A restrained design gives each photograph room to breathe, with clear paths to the exhibition, the book, and the story of Emmett Till himself.
At the heart of the site is Imaginings, an interactive gallery where civic and cultural leaders including Lonnie G. Bunch III, Ava DuVernay, John Legend, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Amy Sherald, and Hank Willis Thomas share their hopes for the life Till should have lived. Beneath each reflection, visitors can add their own response to prompts like “What if Emmett Till lived?” and “How does Emmett Till still live today?” Over time, the website grows into a living continuation of the exhibition.
Since launch, the project has been featured by CNN, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, ESSENCE, Smithsonian Magazine, and Democracy Now!. We are deeply grateful to Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and the Vision & Justice team, including Jessica Williams Stark, Caro Campos, and Janice Moynihan, as well as everyone at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Delmonico Books, and book designer Miko McGinty, who brought this project to life.
If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago through December 19, 2026, free and open to the public. The book, If Emmett Till Lived: A Creative Monument, is available now.
