'Astonishing violence': As Americans battle over Black history, Biden honors Emmett Till

A national monument dedicated to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, will finally be a reality after years of efforts to prompt federal recognition of the teenager whose brutal 1955 killing in Mississippi helped spark the Civil Rights Movement that would follow.

President Joe Biden announced the decision Tuesday, which would have been Till’s 82^nd birthday.

"At a time when there are those who seek to ban books, bury history, we're making it clear -- crystal, crystal clear -- (that) while darkness and denialism can hide much, they erase nothing," Biden said at a ceremony held Tuesday at Washington's Eisenhower Executive Office Building announcing the proclamation. ".... Only with truth comes healing, justice, repair, and another step forward toward forming a more perfect union.  We got a hell of a long way to go."

In a release accompanying the announcement, the Biden administration said the designation of a national monument honoring Till builds on its work to advance civil rights and racial justice, including Biden's signing of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, codifying lynching as a federal hate crime.

The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument will comprise 5.7 acres across several historic sites in Mississippi and Illinois, tapping and encouraging partnerships between the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Park Service and local communities and organizations to preserve the memory of one of America’s most infamous hate crimes.

“The National Park Service cannot bring the Till family the justice they were so cruelly denied in 1955,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association. “But with this new national park site, our leaders are bringing this story back into the light so that we may all continue to learn and grow from it, just as we have at Birmingham, Stonewall, and other national monuments.”

A teen's brutal killing shocks the nation

Till was a 14-year-old Chicago teen when he traveled to Mississippi’s Tallahatchie County to stay with relatives in August 1955. A few days later, he and his cousins stopped to get refreshments at Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market in the rural community of Money, about 110 miles north of Jackson.

While there, Till was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white grocery clerk working at the store.

Four days later, after nightfall, the 14-year-old was abducted from his relatives’ home by the woman’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, who took Till to a barn in remote Sunflower County. According to the FBI, the teen was tortured, brutally beaten and shot in the head, his body then dumped in the nearby Tallahatchie River with a cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire.

His disfigured body was found days later, floating in the river.

Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on a public, open-casket funeral at Chicago’s Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, saying, “Let the world see what they did to my boy.” Photos of the mutilated teen were published around the country in Jet magazine and other major publications, spurring outrage and serving as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.

Within weeks, an all-white, all-male jury acquitted Bryant and Milam of the crime. Not long afterward, Bryant and Milam would confess to the killing in a paid interview published in Look magazine in January 1956.

In December 1955, civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, citing Till’s killing as the reason. Her gesture ignited a landmark bus boycott, ultimately sparking the civil rights career of a young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr.

The case was reopened twice – by the FBI in 2004, then again by the Department of Justice in 2017 – with no new leads, and no one has ever been held legally accountable. Carolyn Bryant Donham, the teen's accuser, died earlier this year in Westlake, Louisiana, at age 88.

“The tragedy that took place when Emmett Till was murdered is an enduring reminder of the racism that fueled injustice for far too long in our country,” said U.S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, who has fought for national monuments honoring Till and other Mississippi civil rights figures. “We have worked hard to ensure the proper recognition of this atrocity.”

In his remarks, Biden praised Till-Mobley for her courage in ensuring the world would see racism's horrors in her son's maimed body. He also praised Black-owned publications of the time, calling them "another hero in this story" for their "unflinching bravery" in publishing photos of Till's mutilated body, "making sure America saw what they saw."

He quoted journalist Ida B. Wells, who once said, "The way to right wrongs is to shine the light of truth on them."

"Well," he said, "that's our charge today."

Memorializing the tragedy's legacy

The national monument will encompass three sites, including Graball Landing outside Glendora, Mississippi, believed to be the riverbank site where Till's body was discovered. A memorial sign first placed there in 2008 has been repeatedly removed or vandalized, most recently replaced by a one-inch thick, bulletproof memorial in October 2019.

The second monument site will be Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville, where Till's funeral was held on Sept. 3, 1955.

The third is the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Till's killers were tried in a segregated courtroom in September 1955.

“Imbued in these now permanently protected buildings and landscapes are the unspeakable crimes of racial violence and the tireless strength of Mamie Till Mobley, who harnessed her grief in pursuit of social justice,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

For years, the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have advocated for establishment of a national park honoring Till and his mother, along with the Emmett Till Interpretive Center; Mississippi’s Mound Bayou Museum of African American History and Culture; and the Reverend Wheeler Parker, Till's cousin and the last surviving witness to his abduction.

The conservation association has previously supported other civil-rights-related sites, including Alabama’s Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, which commemorates the 1969 LGBT community protests sparked by a police raid that would become a catalyst for the gay rights movement.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland began visiting sites associated with Emmett Till’s killing last year, prompting optimism among monument advocates that perhaps federal recognition was nigh.

“At a time when some on the far right are trying to whitewash our nation’s history and erase the devastating legacies of slavery and lynchings on Black Americans, I’m proud that President Biden is taking action to help ensure that generations of Americans have more opportunity to reflect on Mamie and Emmett’s stories,” said U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois. “It’s past time we recognize how national monuments can not only teach us about our history—but provoke us to build a more just future.”

At Tuesday's ceremony in Washington, Vice President Kamala Harris called Till's death "an act of astonishing violence and hate."

"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. ".... Let us not be seduced into believing that somehow we will be better if we forget.  We will be better if we remember.  We will be stronger if we remember." Contributing: Maureen Groppe