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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 9 months

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U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday will honor Emmett Till, the Black teenager whose 1955 killing helped galvanize the Civil Rights movement, and his mother with a national monument across two states.

Till, 14 and visiting from Chicago, was beaten, shot and mutilated in Money, Mississippi, on Aug. 28, 1955, four days after a 21-year-old white woman accused him of whistling at her. His body was dumped in a river.

The violent killing put a spotlight on the U.S. civil rights cause after his mother, Mamie Till-Bradley, held an open-casket funeral and a photo of her son's badly disfigured body appeared in Black media.

The national monument designation across 5.7 acres (2.3 hectares) and three sites marks a forceful new effort by the President to memorialize the country's bloody racial history even as Republicans in some states push limits on how that past is taught.

"America is changing, America is making progress," said the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., 84, a cousin of Till's who was with the boy on the night he was abducted at gunpoint from the relatives' house they were staying at in Mississippi.

"I've seen a lot of changes over the years and I try to tell young people that they happen, but they happen very slow," Parker said on Monday in a telephone interview as he traveled from Chicago to Washington to attend the signing ceremony at the White House as one of approximately 60 guests.

Tuesday marks the 82nd anniversary of Till's birth in 1941. One of the monument sites is the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, where Till's funeral took place.

The other selected sites are in Mississippi: Graball Landing, close to where Till's body is believed to be have been recovered; and Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse, where two white men who later confessed to Till's killing were acquitted by an all-white jury.

Signs erected at Graball Landing since 2008 to commemorate Till's killing have been repeatedly defaced by gunfire.

Now that site and the others will be considered federal property, receiving about $180,000 a year in funding from the National Park Service. Any future vandalism would be investigated by federal law enforcement rather than local police, according to Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi.

Other such monuments include the Grand Canyon, Statue of Liberty and the laboratory of inventor Thomas Edison.

Biden, an 80-year-old Democrat, will likely need strong support from Black voters to secure a second term in the 2024 presidential election.

He screened a film recounting the lynching, "Till," at the White House in February. Last March, he signed into law a bipartisan bill named for Till that for the first time made lynching a federal hate crime.

A Republican field led by former President Donald Trump has made conservative views on race and other contentious issues of history a part of their platform, including banning books and fighting efforts to teach school children accounts of the country's past that they regard as ideologically inflected or unpatriotic.

"This is an amazing, teachable moment to talk about the importance of this story as an American story that everybody can share in now, particularly at a time when people are trying to rewrite history," said Christopher Benson, president of the non-profit organization the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley Institute in Summit, Illinois.

“We have a memorial now that is not erasable. It can't be banned and it can't be censored, and we think that's a very important thing.”

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reasonsforhope · 9 months

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"When President Joe Biden signed a proclamation Tuesday establishing a national monument honoring Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, it marked the fulfillment of a promise Till’s relatives made after his death 68 years ago.

The Black teenager from Chicago, whose abduction, torture and killing in Mississippi in 1955 helped propel the Civil Rights Movement, is now an American story, not just a civil rights story, said Till’s cousin the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr.

“It has been quite a journey for me from the darkness to the light,” Parker said during a proclamation signing ceremony at the White House attended by dozens, including other family members, members of Congress and civil rights leaders.

“Back then in the darkness, I could never imagine the moment like this, standing in the light of wisdom, grace and deliverance,” he said.

With the stroke of Biden’s pen, the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, located across three sites in two states, became federally-protected places. Before signing the proclamation, the president said he marvels at the courage of the Till family to “find faith and purpose in pain.”

“Today, on what would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday, we add another chapter in the story of remembrance and healing,” Biden said...

On Tuesday, reaction poured in from other elected officials and from the civil rights organizing community. The Rev. Al Sharpton said the Till national monument designation tells him “that out of pain comes power.”

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jefferies said the monument “places the life and legacy of Emmett Till among our nation’s most treasured memorials.”

“Black history is American history,” he said in a written statement...

Till-Mobley demanded that Emmett’s mutilated remains be taken back to Chicago for a public, open casket funeral that was attended by tens of thousands of people. Graphic images taken of Emmett’s remains, sanctioned by his mother, were published by Jet magazine and fueled the Civil Rights Movement...

Altogether, the Till national monument will include 5.7 acres (2.3 hectares) of land and two historic buildings. The Mississippi sites are Graball Landing, the spot where Emmett’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River just outside of Glendora, Mississippi, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Emmett’s killers were tried...

The Illinois site is Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, where Emmett’s funeral was held in September 1955...

Mississippi state Sen. David Jordan, 90, was a freshman at Mississippi Valley State College in 1955 when he attended part of the trial of the two men charged with killing Emmett. As a state senator for the past 30 years, Jordan, who is Black, spearheaded fundraising for a statue of Emmett Till that was dedicated last year in Greenwood, Mississippi, a few miles from where the teenager was abducted.

On Tuesday, Jordan praised Biden for creating the Till national monument.

“It’s one of the greatest honors that a president could pay to a person, 14, who lost his life in Mississippi that’s created a movement that changed America,” Jordan told the AP."

-via AP, July 25, 2023

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hottytoddynews · 7 years

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National Park Service Awards $550,000 for Tallahatchie Co. Courthouse & Adams Co. Projects

U.S. Senators Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) today announced that projects to preserve and highlight the Civil Rights Movement in two Mississippi counties will receive $550,000 in federal grant money.

The National Park Service has awarded $500,000 to the Emmett Till Memorial Commission of Tallahatchie County in Sumner to restore the first floor of the Tallahatchie County Courthouse and $50,000 to the Historic Natchez Foundation to research and preserve the civil rights history in Natchez and Adams County.

“More than 50 years have passed since the Civil Rights Movement gained significant momentum in Mississippi and across the country. The passage of time makes preserving these sites and their stories important,” Cochran said. “These grants can help future generations of Mississippians understand and interpret the sites and histories that propelled the fight for justice and equal rights. I look forward to Tallahatchie and Adams counties using these funds to support local and state work to tell their civil rights histories.”

“I am pleased the National Park Service recognizes the importance of funding these restoration projects,” Wicker said. “The events that took place at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse some 50 years ago played an important role during one of the most significant movements in our nation’s history. Additionally, the funds directed to the Historic Natchez Foundation will help to preserve Mississippi’s past for future generations.”

The $500,000 preservation grant for the Tallahatchie County Courthouse will support installation of interactive digital displays and exhibit systems to tell the story of the Emmett Till murder and trial, which helped spur the Civil Rights Movement. The courthouse will remain in use as the second district Tallahatchie County Courthouse as renovation is carried out on the first floor.

The $50,000 history grant will allow the Historic Natchez Foundation to research, interpret, and preserve civil rights history in Natchez and Adams County.

As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Cochran was instrumental in securing $8 million in FY2016 for the National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund to document, interpret, and preserve sites and stories associated with the Civil Rights Movement. This funding permitted the National Park Service to award $7.5 million in grants for 39 projects in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

A 2008 study, Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites, served as reference in determining these National Park Service grants.

In 2007, Cochran secured a $686,000 appropriation to support the restoration of the Tallahatchie County Courthouse to its condition during the Emmett Till trials.

For questions or comments, email [email protected].

The post Cochran, Wicker Announce Grants For Civil Rights Projects in Mississippi appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

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