President Joe Biden will fulfill a years-long effort by conservationists to establish a national monument to preserve landmarks tied to the killing of Emmett Till, a catalyst for the civil-rights movement.
Biden will sign a proclamation Tuesday to create a memorial in honor of Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, in Illinois and Mississippi. The signing will fall on the day that would have been Till’s 82nd birthday, a White House official said.
Till was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 when he was 14 years old. Photos of his deformed face were immortalized in Jet magazine after Till-Mobley insisted on having an open casket at his funeral, drawing national attention to racial violence.
The Biden campaign and the White House have blasted efforts in some states to suppress teachings about slavery and Black history in public school classrooms. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a leading candidate in the GOP presidential primary, has defended new state curriculum regulating lessons on race, which has drawn outrage from educators and civil-rights leaders.
Read more: Biden Campaign Hits DeSantis Over Slavery Curriculum in Florida
“They want to replace history with lies,” Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday in Florida. “Let’s be clear, I do believe this is not only about the state of Florida. There’s a national agenda.”
Black voters are a key constituency for Biden as he seeks re-election in 2024. The president will need to re-energize the bloc in places like Georgia, where he won by narrow margins in 2020.
Earlier this year, members of the Till family joined civil-rights leaders for a screening of the movie Till at the White House during Black History Month. Biden signed legislation last year to officially designate lynching as a federal hate crime, legislation Till’s family has advocated for years.
The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument will be the fourth monument greenlighted under the Biden administration, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The monument spans three locations including the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, where Till’s funeral was held. It also includes the Mississippi site where his body was believed to have been discovered from the Tallahatchie River and the courthouse where his murderers were acquitted by an all-White jury.
