Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley will finally receive the recognition they deserve.
On Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill that will award both Till and his mother with the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously, The Associated Press reported.
Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) both sponsored the bill to award the pair with the highest civilian honor because of the injustices they endured.
In 1955 Till was murdered and lynched in Money, Mississippi by white supremacists after he was falsely accused of whistling at a white woman.
Roy Bryant and his brother J.W. William were charged with Till’s death, however months later, an all-white jury acquitted them of any wrongdoing.
Although the 14-year-old’s body had been badly mutilated, Till-Mobley deemed it necessary that her son have an open casket funeral, which was attended by 50,000 people, according to People Magazine.
Sen. Booker said in a press release that Till’s mother forced America “to reckon with its failure to address racism and the glaring injustices that stem from such hatred.”
Till-Mobley spent the remainder of her life fighting for equality on her son’s behalf. She co-founded the Emmett Till Justice Campaign and pushed for the FBI and Department of Justice to reinvestigate her son’s murder.
She died at the age of 81 in 2003.
According to People, The Emmett Till Justice Campaign played a role in passing the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which requires the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate cold cases from the civil rights era.
Sen. Booker stated, “The courage and activism demonstrated by Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, in displaying to the world the brutality endured by her son helped awaken the nation’s conscience, forcing America to reckon with its failure to address racism and the glaring injustices that stem from such hatred.”