President Joe Biden will establish a national monument to honor Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, was tragically abducted, tortured, and killed in 1955 after being falsely accused of whistling at a White woman in Mississippi. On the anniversary of Emmett Till’s birth, Biden will sign a proclamation to create the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, which will encompass three sites in Illinois and Mississippi.

Emmett Till’s murder played a significant role in sparking the Civil Rights Movement. Despite the trial of the two White men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who were accused of killing Till, they were acquitted by an all-White jury. However, months later, they admitted to the crime in a paid interview with Look magazine. The decision of Till’s mother to hold an open-casket funeral, displaying her son’s brutalized body, and the publishing of photos in Jet magazine were instrumental in galvanizing the Civil Rights Movement.

This upcoming monument will be the fourth one created by President Biden, who has shown a commitment to honoring Emmett Till’s legacy. In the past, he hosted a screening of the movie “Till” for Black History Month and signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law in March 2022.

The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument will safeguard locations central to Till’s life and tragic death at the age of 14, as well as his mother’s activism. These sites include the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago’s historically Black neighborhood, where thousands mourned Emmett Till in 1955. The Mississippi locations involve Graball Landing, where Till’s body was found in the Tallahatchie River, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, where his killers were acquitted by an all-white jury.

In December 2021, the Justice Department closed its investigation into Emmett Till’s killing. The monument serves as a tribute to Till’s memory and aims to preserve the history surrounding his life and tragic death, as well as his mother’s tireless activism.