
East Money Church of God in Christ
Money, MS
The cemetery behind this church—the church where Moses Wright preached until 1949—was almost the burial site for Emmett Till.
On Wednesday, August 24, Emmett Till’s great-aunt and great-uncle went to church services at East Money Church of God in Christ. They gave instructions that “the boys were supposed to venture out no farther than the country store nearby.” (1) However, the boys drove into Money to Bryant’s Grocery store without permission, where Emmett Till encountered Carolyn Bryant.
As described by the Emmett Till Memory Project:
After Till’s body was found, local law enforcement was anxious to bury the body and, they hoped, the story. Within hours of the body’s retrieval, a grave was dug at the East Money church. Emmett’s great uncle Crosby Smith interrupted the digging. He arrived with a deputy sheriff and announced that Emmett's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted that her son’s body be returned home to Chicago. Had the burial taken place, it is unlikely that Emmett Till's murder would have become the national news story that it did. (2)

East Money Church of God in Christ. Photo Credit: Pablo Correa.
The church is now in disrepair, but the cemetery still is extant. The property is still owned by the Church of God in Christ.
Footnotes:
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Devery Anderson, Emmett Till: The Murder that Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement, University Press of Mississippi, 2015, p. 27.
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Dave Tell, Davis Houck, Pablo Correa & the Emmett Till Memorial Commission of Tallahatchie County, “East Money Church of God in Christ,” Emmett Till Memory Project, 2021, https://tillapp.emmett-till.org/items/show/3.