President Biden makes a national monument for Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley
President Biden will sign a proclamation creating the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Illinois today, on what would have been Emmett Till's 82nd birthday. The new national monument will commemorate the tale of Black persecution, survival, and bravery in the United States, focusing on the events surrounding Emmett Till's death and its significance to the civil rights struggle and American history more generally.
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| Source: whitehouse |
Chicago, Illinois, Sumner, Mississippi, and a small area west of Glendora, Mississippi, will serve as the focal points of the new national monument. These locations were pivotal in the events that followed Emmett Till's murder in 1955, particularly the brave leadership of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. To further preserve and interpret a larger network of historic sites that help tell the story of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, the new national monument will encourage and enable partnerships between the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and local communities and organizations.
Bringing attention to the injustices and inequality that Black people experienced during the Jim Crow era, the lynching of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley's courageous efforts to honor her son's story through education and activism sparked the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus just months after Emmett Till's murder. She then explained that thinking of Emmett Till was why she could not agree.
The efforts of the Biden-Harris Administration to further human rights and racial justice, including the President's signing of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime, are furthered by today's designation. The Administration's dedication to safeguarding locations that help tell a more full account of our nation's history is reflected in the creation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, President Biden's fourth new national monument.
Monument Honoring the Lives of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley
The National Park Service will be in charge of the 5.70 acres of land spread across three different historic locations in Illinois and Mississippi that make up the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. The stories of Emmett Till's tragic life and death, the unjust acquittal of his murderers, and the activism of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who bravely brought the world's attention to the brutal injustices and racism of the time, are told through the historical objects protected at these sites by the monument.
In 1955, 14-year-old Chicago resident Emmett Till was accused of making sexual advances on a white female supermarket clerk while visiting family in the Mississippi Delta. Emmett Till's relatives and acquaintances who were there at the time said that wasn't the case. Four days after the alleged event, he was abducted by at least two white men and brutally murdered. On August 31, 1955, three days after Emmett Till's kidnapping, his mangled body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River.
One of the three locations protected by the new national monument is Graball Landing, which may be found outside of Glendora, Mississippi. The body of Emmett Till was reportedly found in the Tallahatchie River at Graball Landing. The community erected a memorial sign in 2008, but it has been stolen or destroyed several times since then. The latest iteration of the sign, which will be unveiled in October of this year (2019), is almost an inch thick and resistant to bullets.
The second landmark is the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, located in Chicago's Bronzeville district. On September 3, 1955, Mamie Till-Mobley disobeyed orders from Mississippi authorities that her son Emmett Till be buried immediately in Mississippi by holding an open-casket funeral service for him at the church. As many as 125,000 people came to mourn Emmett Till and pay their respects over the course of many days.
The trial of Emmett Till's killers began on September 19, 1955 in the segregated Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, the third memorial site. After deliberating for a little over an hour, an all-white jury mistakenly convicted the two killers of Emmett Till. Both murders were eventually paid to give interviews to major publications in which they acknowledged to their crimes. The killers of Emmett Till were never brought to justice.
The proclamation signed today not only designates the aforementioned three locations as a new national monument, but also mandates that the National Park Service work with local communities, organizations, and the public to create a plan to aid in the interpretation and preservation of additional significant sites in Mississippi and Illinois that contribute to the story of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley. Places like Mound Bayou, the Emmett Till Boyhood Home, the Tutwiler Funeral Home, and the Glendora Cotton Gin (now called the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center) may be included.
The dedication of Emmett Till's family, community and civil rights leaders, and local, state, and federal elected officials has led to today's designation, which recognizes their tireless efforts to preserve these locations and keep Emmett Till's narrative alive. Before the designation, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory visited the sites and met with community members to hear their ideas for how to teach the public about the brutal lynching of Emmett Till and how the events surrounding his death helped to dismantle Jim Crow and marked a turning point in the struggle for civil rights in the United States.
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