A statue of black teenager Emmett Till, whose lynching in 1955 sparked civil rights protests in the US, is being unveiled in a Mississippi town with a Confederate monument.
The 14-year-old was abducted from his great-uncle’s house in the town of Money, Mississippi, after allegedly whistling at a white woman in a country store.
He was then beaten and shot.
His body, which had been dumped in the Tallahatchie River and weighed down with a heavy fan, was discovered three days later.
Emmett’s mutilated body was returned to Chicago where his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on a public funeral service with an open-casket so that the world could see the horrors inflicted on her son.
After years of work by community officials, a 9ft-tall bronze statue of the teenager is being unveiled on Friday in Greenwood, about 10 miles (16km) from the remains of the country store.
Situated at the community’s Rail Spike Park, a short drive from an elaborate Confederate monument outside the Leflore County Courthouse, the statue depicts the likeness of the living Emmett. He is sculpted wearing slacks, a dress shirt and a tie, with one hand on the brim of his hat.
“We just thank God someone is keeping his name out there,” said Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., the last living witness to his cousin’s kidnapping.
Democratic state senator David Jordan of Greenwood secured $150,000 in state funding for the project, and the Greenwood community, whose population is more than 70% black, commissioned Utah artist Matt Glenn to create it.
No one was ever convicted for Emmett’s lynching, despite multiple investigations by the US federal government, who reopened the case as recently as 2018. The investigation was closed in 2021 without any charges being issued.
Mr Jordan said he hopes the statue will encourage tourists to visit Greenwood and learn more about its history: “Hopefully, it will bring all of us together”.
The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act was passed by Congress in 2020 – making lynching a federal hate crime.
Lynching is defined as the killing of a person by a group for an alleged offence without a legal trial, often but not always by hanging.
A film called Till, depicting the boy’s brutal murder and his family’s search for justice, is expected to be released in January 2023.
