Emmett Till: Biden to establish national monument honoring

The new monument will be established across three locations in Illinois and Mississippi in an effort to protect places that tell Till’s story, as well as reflect the activism of his mother, who was instrumental in keeping the story of Till’s murder alive.

Biden will sign a proclamation on Tuesday to create the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi, according to the official. The individual spoke on condition of anonymity because the White House had not formally announced the president’s plans.

A White House spokesmen told the Associated Press that Biden will sign a proclamation on Tuesday – which falls on Till’s birthday, 25 July 1941 – to create national monuments to the slain 14-year-old and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi.

The big picture: The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument will be established at three sites in Illinois and Mississippi, per an emailed statement from a White House official Sunday night.

Anybody that was around during that time was touched by Emmett’s murder, and had such a profound effect on everyone.” said Nuri Madina, director of Sustainable Square Mile.

In August 1955, two white men abducted, tortured and killed Till, a 14-year-old Black boy, after he whistled at a white shopkeeper’s wife in a grocery store in Mississippi. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted but later confessed to the killing in a magazine. Fifty years after the crime, the shopkeeper’s wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham, also admitted to lying about Till touching her.

The monument will protect places that are central to the story of Till’s life and death at age 14, the acquittal of his white killers and his mother’s activism. Till’s mother’s insistence on an open casket to show the world how her son had been brutalized and Jet’s magazine’s decision to publish photos of his mutilated body helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement.