Chicago honors legacy of Emmett Till and Mammie Till-Mobley with national monument

CHICAGO - Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Bronzeville — which was the site of the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till in 1955 — is America's newest National Historical Monument.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior joined Illinois leaders to commemorate its creation.

"It is estimated that thousands of people came to this very church," said Mayor Brandon Johnson at the unveiling of temporary signage marking the monument. "The world saw what Mamie Till Mobley saw."

Those attendees, along with the national media, saw what Mamie Till-Mobley bravely insisted they see: her murdered son's remains in an open-casket. The event drew thousands of onlookers, which helped to spark the Civil Rights Movement.

"'Let the people see what they did to my boy,'" said Governor J.B. Pritzker, quoting Mamie Till-Mobley. "With those words, she changed the course of history."

Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi when Carolyn Bryant Donham said the 14-year-old Till whistled and made sexual advances at her while she was working in a store in the small community of Money.

Till was abducted and days later his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, where he had been tossed after he was shot and weighted down with a cotton gin fan.

Two white men, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, were tried on murder charges about a month after Till was killed, but an all-white Mississippi jury acquitted them. Months later, they confessed in a paid interview with Look magazine. Bryant was married to Donham in 1955.

Now, following a proclamation by President Joe Biden, Roberts Temple is part of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Historic Site.

"The story is so painful, but it must be told," said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. "That's what Mamie Till-Mobley wanted. She wanted this nation to be unable to look away."

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"History teaches us many lessons and the lesson of the Roberts Temple is the impact it had on the world," said Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. "The courage of one woman, one family."

Roberts Temple is one of three sites that are part of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. The other two are in Mississippi at the location where Till's body was found in the river, and the courthouse where his killers were wrongly acquitted by an all-white jury.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.