- President Biden created a national monument in honor of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley.
- Till's murder in Mississippi helped spark the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday established a national monument in honor of Emmett Till, the Black teenager from Chicago whose 1955 kidnapping and murder in Mississippi was a defining spark in the emerging civil-rights movement.
Biden made the announcement on what would have been Till's 82nd birthday.
The president signed a proclamation forming the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, which is also reflective of the decadeslong civil rights work of Till's mother, who fought valiantly for equality for Black Americans after her son's murder. The monument will consist of a site in Chicago, the city where Emmett Till was born, and two sites in Mississippi, where the 14-year-old traveled during that fateful 1955 summer to spend time with his cousins.
"I know no matter how much time has passed, how many birthdays, how many events, how many anniversaries, it's hard to relive this. It brings it all back like it happened yesterday," Biden said as he recounted how he was 12 years old when Till was murdered.
The president — speaking at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House — then pushed back against any attempts to minimize or rewrite history, especially as it relates to some of the most traumatic incidents in the nation's history.
"At a time when there are those who seek to ban books and bury history, we're making it clear. Crystal, crystal clear," he said. "We can't just chose to learn what we want to know. We have to learn what we should know. We should know about our country. We should know everything, the good, the bad, the truth. It's who we are as a nation."
"For only with truth comes healing, justice, repair, and forming a more perfect union," he continued. "That's what's going to happen when visitors of all backgrounds learn the history of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley. Telling the truth and the full history of our nation is important."
In August 1955, Emmett Till was accused by Carolyn Bryant Donham of making advances toward her while he was inside the Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Miss., which at the time was run by Donham and her then-husband, Roy Bryant.
The accusation prompted Bryant and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, to abduct Till at gunpoint from the home of his great-uncle, Moses Wright. Bryant and Milam then tortured and lynched the teenager before throwing his body into the Tallahatchie River.
Till's battered body was weighed down by a cotton-gin fan and was found several days later.
His face was unrecognizable. But, at his funeral service in Chicago, Mamie Till-Mobley insisted that her son would have an open casket funeral so the world could see the brutality and horror of what her son endured in the segregated South.
'A story of determination'
Biden during his remarks also praised the Black press — specifically citing Jet magazine and The Chicago Defender — for their unyielding pursuit in revealing Till's case, calling them "another hero in this story."
The Illinois monument site will be the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, on the city's South Side, where Emmett Till's funeral was held in 1955. The Mississippi sites include Graball Landing, where it is believed that Till's body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, where Bryant and Milam were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury.
Theresa Pierno, the president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, said that "there are few stories as heart wrenching" as Till's murder, but also remarked that "it is also a story of determination."
"This is a story of a brave young mother who experienced a parent's worst nightmare, but found the strength and power to rise up and shine a light on injustice as a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Mamie Till-Mobley galvanized a movement and inspired a nation," she said in a statement.
In a 1956 article in Look magazine, Bryant and Milam confessed to the murder. Both men have since died.
Donham died in April. She was 88 years old.
Last December, Congress voted to award the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to Till and his mother.
In March 2022, Biden signed into law the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in US history.
The president's push to elevate civil rights leaders and acknowledge the full scope of Black history comes as Republicans in recent years have sought to limit how race can be taught in classrooms, with conservatives also targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and hailing the Supreme Court's recent decision to end affirmative action in college admissions.
Biden's original student debt relief plan, which was invalidated by the Supreme Court, was also intended to be one that had a significant racial equity element, as the administration sought to narrow the racial wealth gap by forgiving $10,000 in loans for individuals and $20,000 in loans for individuals who received the Pell Grants given to low-income students.
Vice President Kamala Harris — who last week sharply criticized Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida over revised state education guidelines for middle schoolers that mandate teachers include instruction about "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit" — made reference to the issue again during her remarks at the ceremony.
"Today there are those in our nation who would prefer to erase or even rewrite the ugly parts of our past," she said. "Those who attempt to teach that enslaved people benefited from slavery. Those who insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, who try to divide our nation with unnecessary debates."
DeSantis last week pushed back against Harris, accusing her of seeking to "demagogue" the curriculum issue, while also stating that he "wasn't involved" in the changes made by state education officials.