The lynching of Till and the advocacy of Mamie Till-Mobley, Till’s mother, sparked the civil rights movement.
On Tuesday, July 25, which is Till’s birthday, Mr. Biden will issue a proclamation.
One year has passed since he published the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act.
Three distinct locations in the states of Illinois and Mississippi will be part of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument.
Numerous mourners and witnesses came at the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, a historically Black neighborhood on the South Side, in September 1955 to mourn and bear testimony to Emmett Till’s passing.
The monument will be located in Mississippi and will incorporate Graball Landing, thought to represent the location where Emmett Till’s mutilated body was removed from the Tallahatchie River. The Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, is the third location. It is where an all-white jury tried and exonerated the killers of Emmett Till.
The White House issued a statement in which it stated that the new monument would “protect places that tell the story of Emmett Till’s too-short life and racially motivated murder, the unjust acquittal of his murderers, and the activism of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.”
A white woman alleged that Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago, accosted her at a store, which led to his savage beating and eventual death while he was visiting family in Mississippi.
On the evening of August 24, 1955, in Money, Mississippi, Carolyn Bryant Donham claimed that Till had harassed her while she was working by herself as a clerk at the family grocery business.
Three days later, her husband abducted the boy at gunpoint, tormented him, and dumped his damaged body into a river with his half-brother.
A month later, an all-white Mississippi jury found Roy Bryant and JW Milam not guilty of the murder charges against them.
In order for the public to see what Till had gone through, Till’s mother insisted on an open casket for the funeral. Images of the boy’s brutalized remains horrified the country.
Donham was not charged by a grand jury in Mississippi last year for her involvement in Till’s death, and she passed away in April 2023 at the age of 88.
Till’s mother insisted on an open coffin for the funeral so that people might see what Till had gone through. The nation was appalled by images of the boy’s brutalized remains.
Donham died in April 2023 at the age of 88. A grand jury in Mississippi did not indict her last year for her involvement in Till’s death.
Share your thoughts