Chicago ? In a small, nondescript church, the mutilated body of 14-year-old Emmett Till was put on display in an open casket because his mother wanted the nation to see what racism looked like.

Historians and activists call that one of the most significant early statements about civil rights and now, a half-century later, there is a movement to turn that church, the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, into a historic city landmark.

“This is part of the civil rights trail,” said Jonathan Fine, president of Preservation Chicago. “The civil rights trail begins in Chicago and it began in this church.”

Emmett was tortured and murdered in Mississippi, where he had gone to visit relatives, for whistling at a white woman.

His body was brought back to his hometown, but before he was buried his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, let the nation see what had been done to him.