July 25 was chosen as the date to create the new national monument, because that would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday. According to the National Park Service’s website, the national monument includes the following sites:
The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument includes Graball Landing in Glendora, Miss., the area that is believed to be the site where Till’s brutalized body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River; Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, Ill., the site of Till’s widely attended open casket visitation and funeral; and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Miss., where Till’s murderers were tried and acquitted.
This new national monument comes at a time when there is an ongoing debate about how to teach the history of race in our nation. Numerous states have passed laws that forbid teaching that makes students feel distress or discomfort. Yet from the time of Emmett Till’s murder, his mother chose to expose us all to the discomfort and distress caused by racial hatred and violence. Her choice is an important example of the way forward toward racial healing. An insightful article titled “The Power of Place and Racial Trauma Healing” was recently posted on the website of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It features Dr. Justin S. Hopkins, a clinical psychologist as an advisor for the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. The following quote highlights the importance of facing the reality of our nation’s racial trauma rather than denying or minimizing it:
Historic racial events hold the keys to understanding the enduring reality of racial trauma in America, and remembering this history is essential to the viability of our society. We can only understand our present through the lens of our past, and we cannot understand how to heal until we reckon with what caused us harm.
Places tell stories—the stories of history—and we need those stories in order to heal from trauma.
Dr. Hopkins also lifts up the consequences of failing to face our nation’s racial trauma:
Racism is a multi-generational trauma that lives within the body of our society and affects all who inhabit it. As a nation, we have resisted the necessary process of reckoning with our racial wounds by disavowing our history. This does not afford us the chance to heal. It denies the existence of the problem.
That denial, as often happens with trauma, has resulted in reinvented forms of the same racial wounds. This is evidenced by our present-day racial violence and tension. There simply isn’t a place far enough to escape what our nation has been through.
You can read this insightful article in its entirety by clicking here.
Healing never comes by denying or minimizing the source of pain or trauma. Individually and as a nation, we are bound to transmit that pain and trauma to others and to future generations unless we are willing to bear the distress and discomfort that comes with the healing process. The video posted below features remarks by President Biden and an interview with Emmett Till’s cousin and friend, the Rev. Wheeler Parker, Jr. as he reflects on the death of his cousin and the establishment of the new national monument.