Statue honoring Mamie Till-Mobley to be unveiled in Illinois

CHICAGO (AP) — A memorial honoring Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, will be 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. The unveiling at Argo Community High School in Summit, Illinois includes 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. 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.