On what would have been Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday, President Joe Biden on Tuesday established a national monument honoring Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, calling it “another chapter in the story of remembrance and healing.”

What You Need To Know

  • On what would have been Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday, President Joe Biden on Tuesday established a national monument honoring Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley

  • The national monument – which spans three sites in Illinois and Mississippi – protects 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, a black teenager from Chicago, was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. 
  • Biden’s decision also comes at a fraught time in the United States over matters concerning race

Biden signed the proclamation in a ceremony with Vice President Kamala Harris, members of Till’s family and other civil rights leaders. 

The national monument – which spans three sites in Illinois and Mississippi – protects 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. 

“For only with truth comes healing, justice, repair and another step forward toward forming a more perfect union. We've got a hell of a long way to go,” Biden said, noting he had to “temper my anger” when writing his remarks for this event. 

Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. 

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.

Biden’s decision also comes at a fraught time in the United States over matters concerning race. Conservative leaders are pushing back against the teaching of slavery and Black history in public schools, as well as the incorporation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs from college classrooms to corporate boardrooms.

“Today there are those in our nation who would prefer to erase or even rewrite the ugly parts of our past,” Harris said during remarks at Tuesday’s signing. 

In remarks in Florida last week, Harris criticized a revised Black history curriculum in the state that includes teaching that enslaved people benefited from the skills they learned at the hands of the people who denied them freedom.

""They want to replace history with lies," the vice president said last week in Jacksonville. "These extremist, so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the well being of our children. Instead, they dare to push propaganda to our children. This is the United States of America. We're not supposed to do that."

The Florida Board of Education approved the curriculum to satisfy legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate who has accused public schools of liberal indoctrination.

DeSantis said he had no role in devising his state’s new education standards but defended the components on how enslaved people benefited.

“As people who love our country – as patriots – we know that we must remember and teach our full history even when it is painful, especially when it is painful,” Harris said on Tuesday. 

Biden added some are seeking to “ban books” and “bury history.”  

“Darkness and denialism can hide much, but they erase nothing,” Biden said. “You can hide but they erase nothing.”

The president on Tuesday was introduced by Rev. Wheeler Parker, Jr., Till’s cousin and the last surviving witness to Till’s abduction, according to the White House. Rev. Parker Jr. recounted sitting with his family “on the night of terror” when Emmett Till was “taken from us, taken to be tortured and brutally murdered.” 

“Back then, in the darkness, I could never imagine a moment like this,” he said Tuesday. 

The Illinois site for the new monument is Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Bronzeville, a historically Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Thousands of people gathered at the church to mourn Emmett Till in September 1955.

The Mississippi locations are Graball Landing, believed to be where Till’s mutilated body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Till’s killers were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury.

Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi when Carolyn Bryant Donham said the 14-year-old Till whistled and made sexual advances at her while she worked in a store in the small community of Money.

Till was later abducted and his body eventually pulled from the Tallahatchie River, where he had been tossed after he was shot and weighted down with a cotton gin fan.

Two white men, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, were tried on murder charges about a month after Till was killed, but an all-white Mississippi jury acquitted them. Months later, they confessed to killing Till in a paid interview with Look magazine. Bryant was married to Donham in 1955. She died earlier this year.

The monument will be the fourth Biden has created since taking office in 2021, and just his latest tribute to the younger Till.

For Black History Month this year, Biden hosted a screening of the movie “Till,” a drama about his lynching.

In March 2022, Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law. Congress had first considered such legislation more than 120 years ago.

The Justice Department announced in December 2021 that it was closing its investigation into Till’s killing.