- A statue was unveiled in Denver in 1976 (and has since been moved to Pueblo, Colorado) featuring Till with Martin Luther King Jr.
- In 1984, a section of 71st Street in Chicago was named Emmett Till Road and in 2005, the 71st street bridge was named in his honor.[180]
- In 1989, Till was included among the forty names of people who had died in the Civil Rights Movement; they are listed as martyrs on the granite sculpture of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.[181][182]
- A demonstration for Till was held in 2000 in Selma, Alabama, on the 35th anniversary of the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. His mother Mamie Till-Mobley attended and later wrote in her memoirs: "I realized that Emmett had achieved the significant impact in death that he had been denied in life. Even so, I had never wanted Emmett to be a martyr. I only wanted him to be a good son. Although I realized all the great things that had been accomplished largely because of the sacrifices made by so many people, I found myself wishing that somehow we could have done it another way."[183]
- In 2005, James McCosh Elementary School in Chicago, where Till had been a student, was renamed the Emmett Louis Till Math And Science Academy.[184]
- In 2006, the Emmett Till Memorial Highway was dedicated between Greenwood and Tutwiler, Mississippi; this was the route his body was taken to the train station, to be returned to his mother for burial in Chicago. It intersects with the H. C. "Clarence" Strider Memorial Highway.[185]
- In 2006, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission was established by the Tallahatchie Board of Supervisors[186]
- In 2007, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission issued a formal apology to Till's family at an event attended by 400 people. It reads:
We the citizens of Tallahatchie County recognize that the Emmett Till case was a terrible miscarriage of justice. We state candidly and with deep regret the failure to effectively pursue justice. We wish to say to the family of Emmett Till that we are profoundly sorry for what was done in this community to your loved one.[187][186]
- The same year, Georgia congressman John Lewis sponsored a bill to provide a plan for investigating and prosecuting unsolved (cold case) Civil Rights-era murders. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act was signed into law in 2008.[188]
- In 2008, a memorial plaque that was erected in Tallahatchie County, next to the Tallahatchie River at Graball Landing where Till's body was retrieved, was stolen and never recovered.[189] The plaque was a "frequent target for racist vandalism".[189] The location is in a remote area and down a gravel road, meaning that vandals had to go out of the way to get to it.[189] Its replacement was soon also shot up, as was the replacement sign after that.[190] In October 2019, a new bulletproof sign costing over $10,000, and weighing over 500 pounds (230 kg) was installed.[191][190] In November 2019, a group of white supremacists was caught making a propaganda video in front of the sign raising new concerns that more vandalism was being planned. The group was carrying a white flag with a black St. Andrews cross, a flag commonly used by a racist Neo-Confederate group called the League of the South. The group quickly scattered when they set off alarms designed to protect the sign.[192][193]
- The Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, site of the 1955 trial of Till's killers, was restored and re-opened in 2012. The Emmett Till Interpretive Center opened across the street and is also serving as a community center.[186]
- The Emmett Till Memorial Project is an associated website and smartphone app to commemorate Till's death and his life. It identifies 51 sites in the Mississippi Delta associated with him.[186] On August 29, 2015, the Center held a 60th-anniversary event.[194][195]
- In 2015, Florida State University Libraries created the Emmett Till archives.[196][197]
- In 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, the site of Till's funeral, as one of America's most endangered historic places.[4]
- In 2022, the U.S. Senate voted to award Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, the Congressional Gold Medal, forwarding the measure for concurrent action in the U.S. House of Representatives.[198][199] The House passed the measure on December 21, 2022.[200]
- In March 2022, Congress passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act.
- In October 2022, a bronze statue commemorating Till was unveiled in Greenwood, Mississippi's Rail Spike Park, partially funded by the State of Mississippi.[201][202]
- On July 25, 2023 (Till's 82nd birthday), President Biden signed a proclamation establishing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument which honors Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.[203][204]
- The monument will be managed by the National Park Service, and will preserve three areas related to Emmett Till's life and death: Graball Landing in Mississippi, Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Mississippi.[205]
Casket
The story of Emmett Till is one of the most important of the last half of the 20th century. And an important element was the casket ... It is an object that allows us to tell the story, to feel the pain and understand loss. I want people to feel like I did. I want people to feel the complexity of emotions.
—Lonnie Bunch III, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture[206]
During a renewed investigation of the crime in 2005, the Department of Justice exhumed Till's remains to conduct an autopsy and DNA analysis which confirmed the identification of his body. As required by state reburial law, Till was reinterred in a new casket later that year.[207] In 2009, his original glass-topped casket was found, rusting in a dilapidated storage shed at the cemetery.[208] The casket was discolored and the interior fabric torn. It bore evidence that animals had been living in it, although its glass top was still intact. The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. acquired the casket a month later.[206]
