President Joe Biden will sign a proclamation on Tuesday to establish the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. This national monument will honor Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black teenager from Chicago who was brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of whistling at a white woman. The monument will be located across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi.

The first site will be at the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Bronzeville, a historically Black neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. It was at this church that thousands of people gathered to mourn Till's death in September 1955. The second site will be at Graball Landing in Mississippi, believed to be where Till's mutilated body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River. The third site will be at the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Till's suspected killers were tried and acquitted by an all-White jury less than a month after his murder.

Emmett Till's abduction, torture, and lynching played a significant role in sparking the civil rights movement. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket funeral to reveal the brutality her son had endured. The decision to publish photos of Till's mutilated body in Jet magazine further galvanized the fight for racial justice.

Till's death occurred in August 1955 when Carolyn Donham, a white woman working as a grocery clerk, accused Till of making improper advances towards her while she was alone in her store in Money, Mississippi. Three days later, Till was abducted from his relatives' home, and his mutilated body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River on August 31, 1955. Roy Bryant, Carolyn Donham's husband, and his half-brother J.W. Milam were both acquitted of murder charges in Till's death by an all-White Mississippi jury. However, the following year, they confessed to the killing in a paid interview with Look magazine.

In December 2021, the Justice Department announced that it was ending its investigation into Till's killing. In 2022, a grand jury in Mississippi declined to indict Carolyn Donham, ruling that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against her for kidnapping and manslaughter. Donham passed away in April 2023 at the age of 88.

The establishment of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument serves as a reminder of the ongoing fight against racial injustice. Till's cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., expressed the importance of accountability in overcoming racial injustice, stating, "it is up to all of us to be accountable to the challenges we still face."

The signing of the proclamation by President Biden on Tuesday, which coincides with the 82nd anniversary of Till's birth, marks a significant step in recognizing and honoring the legacy of Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley.