The brutal lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till and his family's fight for justice
Emmett Till's cousin, Deborah Watts, told ITV News US Correspondent Dan Rivers in Washington DC the fight for racial justice in the US is far from over
Today, US president Joe Biden will preside over a special ceremony which has been 68 years in the making.
He will proclaim three sites associated with the lynching of a 14-year-old black teenager as national monuments.
You might not have heard of Emmett Till, but you almost certainly know of the civil rights pioneers who were empowered to speak up after his death.
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr both attended memorial rallies to Emmett in the months after his murder.
Their fight for justice was partly sparked by the tragedy of Emmett’s killing. The trial of the two men who tortured and then shot the teenager, dumping his body in a river in Mississippi in 1955, highlighted the gross injustice prevalent across much of the Deep South.
The jury was all white. The judge welcomed the black spectators and journalists, who had to sit in segregated sections in the court, by declaring "Hello [N-word]s". The defendants, Roy Bryant and his half brother J W Milam were unsurprisingly found not guilty.
They had targeted Emmett because he allegedly whistled at Roy’s wife Carolyn, where she worked in a corner store. They later admitted to the murder, selling their story for $4000, certain that under the double jeopardy rules they wouldn’t face a retrial.
The two men beat Emmett so badly his face was barely recognisable. His mother Mamie insisted on an open casket funeral, so the world could see what had happened to her only son. Thousands came to pay their respects in his home city of Chicago.
Emmett had been in Mississippi on holiday visiting relatives. His mother had warned him of the dangers black people faced in the south, pleading with him to go and see other cousins in Nebraska instead.
If he had agreed, he would have met his cousin Deborah Watts.
She grew up knowing all about his murder and the valiant struggle of his mother to highlight the injustice of his killing.
I met Deborah as she was preparing for her visit to the White House, to mark this important milestone in her family’s battle to ensure Emmett’s legacy is recognised and protected. She speaks with great eloquence about this pivotal moment in the history of American civil rights.
'We need to make sure that the authentic story is not erased, Deborah Watts tells ITV News
She is clear this isn’t just part of this country’s troubled past.
"We need to tell the ugly truth so that we can get beyond it", Ms Watts told us.
"Emmett's story wasn't the first, but certainly it was one that caused Amercia to have a conscience and caused America to stand up and really look at ourselves", she added.
"I think we have a lot of work to do."
For many, she tells me, it is a corrosive force in America’s present. She comes from Minnesota where George Floyd was killed by police officers who choked him during an arrest. Emmett’s family know the dangers faced by African Americans is still an every day reality in the twenty first century.
They hope is that by giving three key locations associated with Emmett’s death, the same safeguards as a national park, his life and death will be highlighted once again, protecting his legacy for a new generation still struggling to get equality.
"Emmett's place in history, the sacrifices that his mother made...that truth needs to continue to be told", Deborah said.
"It needs to not be erased."
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