Tuesday, July 25 2023 10:23
CHICAGO (WLS) — President Joe Biden will erect a national monument to honor Chicagoan and civil rights icon Emmett Till and his mother on Tuesday on his 82nd birthday.
President Biden will sign a proclamation establishing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument at three locations in Illinois and Mississippi.
One site will include Roberts Temple Church of Christ in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, where thousands of people have gathered to mourn Till's death.
A statue of Mamie Till-Mobley, a memorial to Emmett's son, was unveiled at Summit High School where he attended
A black teenager from Chicago was murdered in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.
Till's best friend, younger cousin and kidnap witness, the Reverend Wheeler Parker, Junior will introduce the president Tuesday at the White House.
He recently spoke to GMA about his memory.
“How could it happen in America, but it happened,” said Pastor Parker. “If you don't live through that time or experience what I'm talking about, you don't know what it means, what it's like. You can be killed for anything and no one is going to say anything to help you.”
Emmett Till remembers being in Chicago near his 82nd birthday
The monument will protect the sites that were central to Till's story of life and death at age 14, the acquittal of his killers, and the activism of his mother that helped catalyze the civil rights movement.
In addition to the Chicago site, two other monument sites will be in Mississippi at Graball Landing in Glendora and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner. The courthouse is where Till's killers were unlawfully acquitted by an all-white jury.
Grabball's landing is believed to be where Till's body was found in the Tallahatchie River.
Members of the Till family will be among about 60 guests at the White House event.
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