US President Joe Biden is to announce Tuesday, July 25, the creation of a new national monument in memory of Emmett Till, a black teenager victim of a racist assassination in 1955, and became a posthumous figure of the civil rights movement, said Monday the White House. This symbolic act is part of the fight against resurgent racism, said the US executive. The monument will commemorate the 14-year-old black boy who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in 1955 in the segregationist state of Mississippi.
Originally from Chicago, the young boy was visiting family members in the southern state and had been accused of whistling at a white woman. He was later abducted and his mutilated body was found 72 hours later in a river. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, had become an activist in the civil rights movement in the United States, and will also be honored by this monument.
Several commemorative signs vandalized
Three historic sites in Illinois and Mississippi will form the memorial. One of them will be a church in Chicago where Mamie Till-Mobley insisted that her son's casket remain open, so that the huge crowd could see Emmett Till's disfigured face. Several signs commemorating the brutal murder at the scene of the event have been vandalized several times over the years.
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The White House's announcement comes amid controversy around Ron DeSantis, one of the favorites for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election. The governor of Florida is accused of wanting to minimize certain racist aspects of U.S. history in his state's textbooks, considering himself fighting the "virus" of "woke" values of the left. Last week, Ron DeSantis said that slavery had benefited slaves in some ways.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre called the statements "erroneous" and "insulting." "It's hurtful and it doesn't allow for an honest account of our country's history," she said. The spokeswoman said the monument to Emmett Till will be part of "the larger story of the oppression of black Americans, of their survival."