President Joe Biden on Tuesday honoured Emmett Till, a black Chicago teenager whose lynching in 1955 helped to spur the civil rights movement in the US, by designating a national monument to him and his mother.
At the age of 14 while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, Emmett was kidnapped, beaten, mutilated, shot and thrown into a river after Carolyn Bryant, a white shopkeeper, accused him of wolf whistling at her.
His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, held an open casket funeral so the world could see what a racist murder had done to her son.
Images of his body, published by Jet magazine in September 1955, politicised a generation of African-Americans.
The White House said the monument will tell the story of Emmett's murder, its significance in the civil rights movement and the “history of black oppression, survival and bravery” in the US.
The designation comes as the US again struggles to confront its racist history.
Republicans have supported book bans that have resulted in texts dealing with race removed from schools, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has sought to downplay the history of racism in the state's school curriculum.
"Darkness and denialism can hide much but they erase nothing," Mr Biden said during a proclamation signing ceremony at the White House complex.
"We can't just choose to learn what we want to know."
Added Vice President Kamala Harris: "Today there are those in our nation who prefer to erase or even rewrite the ugly parts of our past, those who attempt to teach that enslaved people benefited from slavery," alluding to reported comments made by Mr DeSantis that some enslaved people benefited from learning a craft.
The monument will be located across three sites in the states of Illinois and Mississippi.
“These sites are central to Emmett Till’s racially motivated murder in 1955 and the defining events that followed – including the courageous activism and leadership of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley,” the White House said.
One of the sites, Graball Landing in rural Mississippi, is believed to be the location where Emmett's body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River. The second site will be at the Chicago church where Ms Till-Mobley held the open-casket funeral for her son.
An all-white jury in Mississippi acquitted JW Milam and Roy Bryant, the two killers – who later admitted to the murder – after deliberating for one hour in a segregated courtroom.
The courthouse will be the third monument site to Till.
