Biden to establish national monument honoring Emmett Till in Illinois, Mississippi

President Joe Biden is expected on Tuesday to announce the creation of a national monument honoring Emmett Till, a black teenager whose brutal murder sparked the civil rights movement in 1955, and his mother.

Biden's announcement Tuesday coincides with what would have been Till's 82nd birthday. 

"The new monument will protect places that tell the story of Emmett Till’s too-short life and racially-motivated murder, the unjust acquittal of his murderers, and the activism of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who courageously brought the world’s attention to the brutal injustices and racism of the time, catalyzing the civil rights movement," a White House official said, according to CNN. 

Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago, was in Mississippi visiting family when he was beaten and shot to death for allegedly whistling and making sexual advances at a white woman. 

The monument will include three sites, including Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in the South Side of Chicago, the site of Till's funeral where his mother, Mamie Till-Bradley, insisted on holding an open-casket funeral so visitors could see his mutilated body. The decision helped stimulate the Civil Rights Movement.

The other two sites are in Mississippi: Graball Landing, where Till's body is believed to have been pulled from the Tallahatchie River, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, where the men who murdered Till were acquitted by an all-white jury.

The White House official also said: "The designation reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s work to advance civil rights and commitment to protecting places that help tell a more complete story of our nation’s history."

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.