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In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till left his home in Chicago to visit family in the Mississippi Delta, where he was abducted and lynched on August 28. Emmett’s death might have gone unnoticed by the general public if not for the courage of his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, who decided to “let the world see what I have seen” by holding an open-casket visitation and funeral for her son at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago.

Emmett’s murder shocked the conscience of the nation and illuminated the reality of racial violence in America. The proceeding trial of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant for Emmett’s murder, held at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, also demonstrated the injustice of the time.

We at the National Trust for Historic Preservation believe that the sites connected to Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley should be memorialized in perpetuity. Through national monument designation, these places can serve as a pathway for education, racial healing, and progress.

Since 2017, the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund has invested nearly $500,000 in grant funding for the critical stabilization of Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, along with the expansion of programming and paid staff at the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi and the Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley House in Chicago.

Add your name to those calling for the establishment of a national monument honoring Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley.

On Tuesday, May 10, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz toured several sites in Illinois that honor individuals and events that advanced the Civil Rights Movement. This visit continues the effort to tell a fuller story of the struggle for civil rights in America, building on Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary Estenoz’s visit earlier this year to several sites and communities in Mississippi.

As part of her trip, Assistant Secretary Estenoz visited sites associated with the lives of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, where she met with Till relatives, historians, local and state historic preservation advocates, and other community leaders working to preserve those sites. The National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund team, the Till Institute, National Park Conservation Association, and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center were part of these meetings and discussed the shared mission to tell America’s full story.

Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) joined Assistant Secretary Estenoz during her visit to Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ (listed on the National Trust’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2020) on Chicago’s South Side. Bipartisan legislation is pending in Congress to designate Roberts Temple, a City of Chicago Landmark, as a unit of the National Park System. The delegation continued its tour by visiting the Emmett and Mamie Till Mobley House, Burr Oak Cemetery, and sites associated with the Till family in Summit, Illinois.

The Emmett Till Interpretive Center, in partnership with the Till family, launched an Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Park Campaign in March 2021 to support the creation of a National Park with multiple sites across the Mississippi Delta and at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago. To learn more about the Till National Park Campaign, visit TillNationalPark.org.

• Read the full press release from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

On Tuesday, February 15, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory, at the invitation of Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), visited sites across the Mississippi Delta associated with Emmett Till’s life and murder to gather local input on the creation of a National Park dedicated to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till Mobley.

Sites visited included the Tallahatchie County Courthouse and Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, the Tutwiler Funeral Home in Tutwiler, Mound Bayou, and the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center in Glendora. At each site, Secretary Haaland and Chair Mallory met with and listened to local residents.

The Tallahatchie County Courthouse was the site of the trial of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant for Emmett’s murder. Over the last 15 years, the Tallahatchie County Board of Supervisors and the Emmett Till Memorial Commission partnered to restore the courthouse to its 1955 condition during the murder trial to act as a site of conscience. In 2007, the courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places and restoration of the building was complete in December 2020.

The Emmett Till Interpretive Center, in partnership with the Till family, launched an Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Park Campaign in March 2021 to support the creation of a National Park with multiple sites across the Mississippi Delta and at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago. To learn more about the Till National Park Campaign, visit TillNationalPark.org.

• Read the full Press Release from the Emmett Till Interpretive Center.
• Read more about Secretary Haaland’s visit via AP News.