President Biden will announce plans for a monument to Emmett Till, the Chicago teen who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a White woman.

A White House source told The Associated Press that Mr. Biden will unveil plans for the monument on Tuesday — the anniversary of Till’s birth in 1941.

Emmett and his mother will be honored in the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument which will be spread across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi.

The various sites will highlight Till’s life, the acquittal of his White killers and his mother’s activism.

The Illinois site is located at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Bronzeville. The two sites in Mississippi include Graball Landing, which is where Emmett’s body was believed to be retrieved from the Tallahatchie River, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where the teen’s killers were acquitted on murder charges.

Carolyn Bryant, who died in April as Carolyn Donham, accused the 14-year-old Emmett of grabbing her and verbally propositioning her in August 1955 while Emmett was visiting his uncle in Money, Mississippi.

Donham’s husband at the time, Roy Bryant, and J.W. Milam abducted the teen from his bed, tortured him and later shot him dead. The killers then tossed his body into the Tallahatchie River.

Donham repeated her accusations about Emmett during a 1955 murder trial against Bryant and Milam. Both were acquitted by an all-White jury. The two assailants admitted to killing Emmett in a 1956 interview with Look magazine.

Emmett’s death — and his mother’s decision to have an open casket at his funeral, showing the boy’s mutilated face — was a major catalyst for the American Civil Rights movement.  

— This article is based in part on wire service reports.

• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.