The Senate has passed a bill to grant the Congressional Gold Medal in retrospect to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black teenager from Chicago who was murdered by white supremacists in 1955, and his mother Mamie Til-Mobley who insisted on having an open-casket funeral to reveal the brutality of his killing. Â
Emmett Till was abducted, severely beaten, and killed after white witnesses said that he whistled at a white woman at a grocery store in Mississippi, which at the time was a violation of the South’s racist societal codes. Till was then taken from his great-uncle’s home in the early morning hours four days later and was beaten to death. After Till’s mother insisted on an open casket, Jet magazine published photos of his brutalized body which motivated the civil rights movement to take action. Â
Senator Richard Burr, R-N-C., and Senator Cory Booker, D-N-J., first introduced the bill in 2020 to honor Emmett and his mother with the highest civilian honor that Congress awards. The legislation described this as long-overdue recognition of what the Till family endured and what they accomplished in their fight for justice. Â
Representative Bobby Rush, D-III sponsored The House version of the legislation, and he has also sponsored a bill to present a commemorative postage stamp in honor of Mamie Till-Mobley.
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