President Joe Biden announced his plans to establish a national monument honoring the lives of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument will be established in Chicago, Illinois, and sites in Mississippi, the state where Emmett was murdered at the age of 14.
The Washington Post reports that Biden signed the proclamation establishing the new monument on what would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday on Tuesday, July 25.
Emmett’s murder and his mother’s decision to have an open casket at his funeral were catalysts for the Civil Rights movement. The new monuments will be located at the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, and a Tallahatchie River bank in Mississippi.
Emmett’s funeral was held at the Roberts Temple Church of God and the Tallahatchie County Courthouse is where his murderers were acquitted by an all-white jury. Emmett’s mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River.
“Today would’ve been Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday,” wrote Biden. “Later today, I’ll sign into law a presidential proclamation establishing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Illinois and Mississippi.
Emmett was murdered by Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, after Emmett reportedly whistled at Bryant’s wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham, inside a grocery store in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. Emmett was in town visiting family from Chicago and was snatched from his bed in the middle of the night by Bryant, Milam and at least three other unindicted white men and thrown into a truck.
His teeth were broken as a result, and Emmett…
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