Naomi Osaka Pays Tribute to Emmett Till, Dons His Name on Face Mask

Tennis star Naomi Osaka sparked comments during the US Open by wearing facemasks with the names of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and other victims of either police violence or racial profiling. She recently appeared on the cover of Vogue and wore a face mask with a different name. She paid tribute to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American who was murdered on Aug. 28, 1955.

According to the History Channel, Till went into a store on Aug. 24, 1955, and purchased candy from Carolyn Bryant. There were no witnesses in the store, but she later claimed that Till “grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out.” Her husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother later forced Till into their car in the early morning hours of Aug. 28, and then tied him to a cotton-gin fan with barbed wire and threw him into the Tallahatchie River. This act followed them beating Till nearly to death, gouging out his eye and shooting him in the head.

Designer Virgil Abloh created the mask with Till’s name, as well as others for the photoshoot. One featured the words “For Freedom,” while another said, “Speak Up.” The masks were then used for the Vogue cover story in which Osaka discussed how the pandemic changed how she paid attention to the events in the surrounding world.

“As tennis players, we’re so hyper-focused on what happens on the court, and we think our life is sort of determined by whether we win a match or not,” Osaka said in the Vogue story. “That’s not true. I think that the pandemic gave me the chance to go into the real world and do things that I wouldn’t have done without it.

“I feel like this is something that was building up in me for a while. I watched the Trayvon stuff go down. For me that was super-scary. I travel so much during the year that I don’t always know the news that’s centered in the U.S. But then when the pandemic hit, there were no distractions. I was forced to look.”

When Osaka wore masks with the names of seven victims, she received feedback from several different people. Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, and Marcus Arbery, the father of Ahmaud Arbery, both recorded videos thanking Osaka. They thanked the tennis star for her support and called for her to “kick butt” in the US Open. Osaka ultimately went on to win, securing her third Grand Slam title.