President Joe Biden established a national monument honoring Emmett Till and his mother on Tuesday and called out Republican efforts to stymie civil rights education in classrooms.
The new monument will consist of three protected sites: one in Illinois, where Till was from, and two in Mississippi, where white men kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and lynched 14-year-old Till for allegedly flirting with one of their wives while he was visiting family in the state in 1955.
“When I was preparing these remarks, I, quite frankly ― and my colleagues understand this ― I found myself trying to temper my anger as I was writing,” Biden opened his remarks. “I’m not joking. I can’t fathom what it must have been like.”
The monument designation fell on what would have been Till’s 82nd birthday. His mother, the late Mamie Till-Mobley, was also honored for her civil rights activism following her son’s murder, including her insistence that he have an open-casket funeral so that…