Emmett Till and His Mother Mamie Till-Mobley – Library of Congress

Dear Commons Committee,

The US Senate has passed a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously to Emmett Till, the Chicago teenager murdered by white supremacists in the 1950s, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who insisted on an open casket funeral to demonstrate the brutality of his killing.

In August, 1955, Till was abducted, tortured and killed after witnesses said he whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman at a grocery store in rural Mississippi, a violation of the South’s racist societal codes at the time.  This incident has been a matter of dispute to this day. In return, Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam  went to Till’s great-uncle’s house, abducted and killed Emmett in the predawn hours four days later.   In September 1955, an all-white jury found Bryant and Milam not guilty of Till’s murder. Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had killed Till.

The killing galvanized the civil rights movement after Till’s mother insisted on an open casket and Jet magazine published photos of his brutalized body.

Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J. and Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced the bill to honor Till and his mother with the highest civilian honor that Congress awards. They described the legislation as a long overdue recognition of what the Till family endured and what they accomplished in their fight against injustice.

The House version of the legislation is sponsored by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. He also has sponsored a bill to issue a commemorative postage stamp in honor of Mamie Till-Mobley. 

Well-deserved honors!

Tony

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