On Monday, Aug. 28, Graball Landing, situated along River Road near Glendora, was the setting for a formal National Park Service commemoration of the establishment of the new Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument.
Similar ceremonies were held over the preceding weekend at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, and on Aug. 1 at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago — the two other historic locations in two states comprising the three-site national monument.
President Joe Biden had established the monument by presidential proclamation on July 25, on what would have been Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday.
The Graball Landing festivities were held on the 68th anniversary of the date in 1955 that the 14-year-old black Till was abducted from his great-uncle’s home near Money and murdered after whistling at a white female store clerk in Money.
Three days later, Till’s swollen and disfigured body was removed from the Tallahatchie River near Graball Landing. Family members identified him only by a ring on his finger that bore his father’s initials.
Till’s funeral was held at Roberts Temple, where his mother, Mamie, demanded an open casket to “let the people see” the result of brutality.
The trial of two white men accused in his death was held at the Sumner courthouse. An all-white jury acquitted the men, who later admitted to the killing in a paid magazine interview. Double jeopardy kept them from being retried.
The Till lynching and subsequent miscarriage of justice served as a catalyst for the nation’s Civil Rights Movement.
In 2022, Congress passed a bill making lynching a federal hate crime. The legislation was titled The Emmett Till Antilynching Act.
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Last week’s Graball Landing festivities were coordinated by the National Park Service, which has oversight of the monument.
A formal program held under large white tents and attended by about 100 people featured remarks by several dignitaries.
Otis Anthony, of Indianola, who represents District 31 in the Mississippi House of Representatives as well as pastoring West Grove Missionary Baptist Church, provided the opening prayer:
"To God our father, you are the giver of every good and perfect gift. You have allowed us to assemble here today, commemorating the life and the legacy of Emmett Till. You have given us this gift to the world to show us the inhumanity that mankind has borne upon each other. But through that tragedy, through that tumultuous time in our state's history, from that you have allowed us to gather here together to show that we still have love for one another. So, we thank you right now. We thank you for his life. We thank you for his family. Thank you, oh God, for the opportunity that you've given all of us to carry on his legacy. Thank you for giving us the strength, the wherewithal, the wisdom and the knowledge, to continue to fight for justice and equality for all mankind."
In offering the official welcome, District 24 state Sen. David Jordan said, “We are all here today in one accord ... regardless of race, creed or color. We are all here because this lynching changed America ... [and] caused a complete metamorphosis. We all are, hopefully, better because of what happened here.”
Second District Congressman Bennie Thompson credited the Biden administration’s commitment to “diversity, equality and inclusion” for making the new national monument possible.
Thompson said the National Park Service will help to “bring people to this area and talk about the dastardly deed that young Emmett had to endure at the hands of his killers. So it’s in his spirit we’re here today, as in his spirit ... we’ll do a lot of cleansing for this community and this state as a whole.”
The congressman questioned what state history books will say about the Till murder, adding that he hopes the truth will not be lost. “I hope not, because this happened, this is history, and our commitment should be that it never happen again.”
Shannon Estenoz, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of the Interior, where she oversees both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, said the new national monument will keep the story of Emmett Till alive.
“National monuments mark our nation’s most significant cultural, historical and natural resources,” she said. “There is a national monument here because Emmett and Mamie’s story changed American history.”
“One family’s unthinkable loss and indescribable pain became a nation’s clarion wakeup call,” Estenoz continued. “Mamie shook the nation awake by laying bare the brutality, the injustice, the barbarity inflicted on its Black citizens. And she did it by making them see what they had done to her son.”
She said sites making up the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument “will be protected, cared for and interpreted by the National Park Service. And because the National Park Service is in the forever business, it will ensure that this story will take its rightful permanent place in the national historical narrative.”
Turning to the 25 or so Park Service personnel present, Estenoz laid out their mission.
“You will work with this community to tell the fullest story of the events that happened in Mississippi and Illinois — from Money, to Drew, to Glendora, to Tutwiler, to Sumner, to Chicago. You will form partnerships with organizations already working in this community, like ETHIC [Emmett Till Intrepid Center in Glendora], for example, to share this story with all who come here. And you will do what you do best: You will use the power of place to connect people to the past and challenge them to think deeply about the future.
“In the years ahead, thousands of people will come to this place,” Estenoz noted. “Some of them will be mothers. Some of them will be 14-year-olds. Some will be moved to tears. Some will, indeed, think deeply. And a few are going to walk away from this place changed forever.”
In her last remarks, Estenoz shared the impact that the Graball Landing site had on her.
“I’m just one American citizen who came and stood down by the river. ... I thought, you know, those murderers, they tried to use this beautiful river to hide their crimes, to hide their brutality, to hide the cruelty that made them barely human in 1955. But the river was no accomplice; she would have none of it,” Estenoz said. “She gave Emmett back to his mother on this spot. This is where he began his journey back home to Chicago, where he would be received by his mother and by 150,000 mourners and by the pages of history — but not just the pages of history; this is where he would be received by the consciousness of a nation, where his mother lit the fire that burns to this day. I found myself being so grateful to the river.”
Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the president, by establishing the national monument, “is preserving and protecting the stories of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley. He’s protecting them and making them a clear part of our nation’s history — one that, I think, as we see when we read the news, we have to continue to fight for that history being recognized and reflected in the way that it should.”
Mallory referred to a letter written recently to President Biden, telling him that the establishment of this monument “says more than any words could at a very critical time in our country, a time when we still have too frequent reminders that the cancer of hate is in our midst.”
Deirdre Hewitt, acting superintendent of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument for the National Park Service, lauded the many organizations and individuals whose collaboration, support and involvement helped lead to the creation of this national monument.
Hewitt credited the NAACP, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, ETHIC, the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area based at Delta State University, the Two Museums in Jackson and others like them who “have labored to educate the public about the story and worked for positive change.”
Near the end of the formal program, Hewitt, who had several speaking segments, said, “As we dedicate this land for protection by the National Park Service, for and on behalf of the American people, we also pay tribute to Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, two American heroes whose actions changed the course of American history.”
Hewitt described the significance and symbolism of the wreath, standing in front of the dais, which would be laid on the riverbank in honor of Till and his mother:
“For millennium, wreaths have been used to represent the cycle of life,” she began. “Here, the wreath circle also represents Emmett’s ring, which helped relatives identify him on the riverbank. The wreath is interwoven with the magnolia flower and the chrysanthemum, official flowers for the state of Mississippi and city of Chicago.”
Speakers and other dignitaries made their way past a roped-off area to the riverbank for placement of the wreath, mounted on a stand.
There was one minute of silence, followed by the song, “We Shall Overcome,” during which those who participated in the wreath-laying walked hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, from the riverbank.
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Before and after the program, several local residents offered their thoughts on the occasion.
» Rev. Willie Williams, chairman of the board of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, called it “a great day” and said, “I think this is a continuation of the healing process and ongoing work of racial reconciliation.”
» Germaine Hampton, who teaches U.S. History at West Tallahatchie High School, said, “This is historic. ... It highlights the importance of what happened here in terms of a national discussion on race, efforts to later improve racial reconciliation across the country. I’m just so proud that the federal government has stepped in to help push those efforts to highlight this historic location even further than local and state entities have done thus far.”
» While saying that his “lowest moment” was seeing a sign placed at Graball Landing by the Emmett Till Memorial Commission (ETMC) shot up with bullets for a third time, Patrick Weems, director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, noted, “So to see so much honor and attention placed on this site makes me proud. I’m proud of this community. I’m proud of folks like Jerome Little, and Betty Pearson, Frank Mitchener and Rev. Williams, who elevated this site to give it the national attention it deserves.”
» Dave Tell, author of the 2021 book, “Remembering Emmett Till,” said, “This is a site that in 2008, 18 people [members of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission] could not even get the county to care about. So they got $1,200 of Morgan Freeman’s money, they spent it on a cheap aluminum sign, they couldn’t even keep the sign up, and 15 years later we have the federal government protecting it, and they’re in the forever business. So, it’s a story of triumph.”
» Sykes Sturdivant, whose brother Walker owned and donated four acres of the Graball Landing site to the National Park Service, has served on the Emmett Till Memorial Commission from its founding in late 2005.
“I think one of our biggest goals was to get the National Park Service here to where we got credibility, and exposure and vision, and we got that today,” said Sturdivant. “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever worked with.”
“We’re going to have people, tourism, in Tallahatchie County. It’s going to make it big time,” added Sturdivant. “And I say it every time when I talk to anybody: We’ll all be dead and gone, but Emmett Till will still be here. That guy will be here for eternity, and we will always talk about his story and, hopefully, it will never happen again.”
» State Rep. Tommy Reynolds, who also serves as attorney for the Tallahatchie County Board of Supervisors, said establishment of the national monument “shows what can happen when everyone works together.”
“I think that’s the lesson of this, and it can be a unifying thing and not a dividing thing,” Reynolds added. “That’s what we need in this state, county, country and everywhere: unity of purpose and working together. Applied Christianity will work.”
» Architect Belinda Stewart, whose firm helped to restore the courtroom at the Sumner courthouse to its 1955 appearance, said, “This is just extraordinary. This story is going to be known in perpetuity because of this National Park Service ownership and commitment, and that’s forever.”
» District 4 Supervisor Marcus Echols, in whose district Graball Landing is located, said, “Considering what this county has been through over the years, for everything and everybody to come together ... it says a lot about the progress of Tallahatchie County.”
