Statue honoring Mamie Till-Mobley unveiled in Illinois

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CHICAGO (AP) — A memorial honoring Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, was unveiled Saturday outside the suburban Chicago high school she attended as a young woman, long before she became a critical player in the Civil Rights Movement.

Emmett Till’s 1955 lynching in Mississippi and his mother’s insistence on an open-casket funeral for the 14-year-old served as a catalyst for civil rights. Till-Mobley was a civil rights activist for the rest of her life.

The memorial opened to the public Saturday outside Argo Community High School in Summit, Illinois, including a bronze statue of Till-Mobley with hands spread wide and standing behind a podium, which bears bronze reliefs of her son, the Mississippi barn where he was killed and the Chicago funeral home where thousands of mourners gathered.

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No one has been held accountable for the teenager’s kidnapping and murder; the white woman who accused him of whistling at and accosting her died last week at the age of 88.

Till-Mobley died in 2003 in Chicago and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in December along with her son.

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Argo Community High School and the Argo Higher Education Foundation raised money toward the project and an annual scholarship for a graduate demonstrating a commitment to social justice.

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