On Tuesday July 25, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, establish a national monument honoring the life of the late Black American teenager Emmett Till and his mother, civil rights activist Mamie Till-Mobley, in honor of what would have been Till’s 82nd birthday. Monument status will deliver protections for three significant places linked to the life and murder of Emmett Till, protecting his story from erasure in light of the push led by conservationists to sanitize if not delete black history and slavery history nationwide school programs.
In 1955, 14-year-old Chicago-born Till was charged with wolf-whistling and groping Carolyn Bryant Donham, the wife of a white shopkeeper, while visiting family in highly segregated Mississippi. After hearing Donham’s accusations days after the alleged incident, her husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother, JW Milam, drove to Till’s great-uncle’s house and snatched the teenager from the house and into their car. They beat Till within an inch of his life, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and used barbed wire to tie his body to a heavy cotton gin fan before throwing him into the Tallahatchie River. Till’s recovered body was unrecognizable, but his identity was confirmed by an initialed ring on one of his fingers.
Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, had his body returned to Chicago where she bravely staged an open service to force the nation to come to terms with the brutality inherent in his death. Thousands of people attended Till’s funeral and Till-Mobley authorized Jet magazine to publish photos of her son’s body, shining the spotlight on her murder which galvanized the civil rights movement. Bryant and Milam were acquitted of all charges by an all-white, all-male Mississippi jury, and some 60 years later, Carolyn Bryant Donham herself has revealed that while she can’t remember exactly what happened with Till before his murder, he never raised his hand to her.
President Biden will designate three protected sites to memorialize Till: the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, which held Till’s funeral in Chicago’s Southside; the Graball landing spot on the Tallahatchie River where Till’s body was reportedly found; and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse where Bryant and Milam were acquitted of all charges. Graball Landing has been in the headlines since 2016 like vandals always did pulled over existing panel commemorating Emmett Till until he is replaced by a bulletproof version speaking directly to vandals in 2019.
The move is especially relevant as Republican-backed efforts to restrict the teaching of Black history in schools and disband Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility resources and groups continue to grow. impact states across the country. vice-president Kamala Harris recently criticized the Florida Board of Education for his newly approved statewide history curriculum suggesting that some enslaved African Americans benefited from the skills they learned during their forced labor.
However, some critics on social media are not convinced that the monument is anything but symbolic. An user quoted a quote attributed to Malcolm X which reads: “The white man will try to satisfy us with token victories rather than economic fairness and true justice”, and another asked Why Carolyn Bryant Donham has not been arrested and tried as an accomplice for the murder of Emmett Till before his death last year.
