Biden to approve national monument honoring Emmett Till, a Black teenager lynched in Mississippi

Marina Pitofsky, USA TODAY
·2 min read
4
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

President Joe Biden will establish a monument to honor Emmett Till, a Black teenager who was tortured and killed in 1955, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.

Biden will sign a proclamation on Tuesday approving the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. The date marks the 82nd anniversary of Till’s birth.

Till was 14 when he traveled from his hometown of Chicago to Mississippi to visit relatives in 1955. Till was accused of flirting or whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman working at a store.

Days later, two men abducted Till from his relatives’ home. Roy Bryant, Carolyn Bryant's husband, and Roy’s half-brother, J.W. Milam, brutally tortured and killed Till before his body was dumped into the Tallahatchie River.

Washington:Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. Who was Emmett Till and what happened to him?

The monument will take shape at three different sites. One of those sites will include Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, where thousands of people gathered to mourn Till in 1955.

President Joe Biden speaks with members of the media after a briefing in Rolling Fork, Miss., Friday, March 31, 2023. Biden traveled Rolling Fork to survey the damage after a deadly tornado and severe storm moved through the area. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker look on.

The other sites will be located in Mississippi. Those include Graball Landing, where Till’s body was likely pulled from the Tallahatchie River, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse, where his killers were acquitted by an all-white jury.

Roy Bryant and Milam later confessed to killing Till in a paid interview.

Following her son’s death, Till-Mobley organized a large funeral that was attended by thousands of mourners. Till’s face was left completely unrecognizable, but she allowed the media to publish images of her son’s open casket.

The coverage helped shine a light on the violent white supremacy Black people in America faced in the Jim Crow era and fuel the nation’s Civil Rights movement.

Biden last year signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act.

“Although he was one of thousands who were lynched… his mother’s courage to show the world what was done to him energized the Civil Rights Movement,” Biden said at the legislation’s signing last year.

Contributing: Joey Garrison and Orlando Mayorquin, USA TODAY; Associated Press

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Biden to approve national monument for Emmett Till, lynched in Mississippi