(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – 71 years after the Mississippi lynching of Emmett Till (pictured), a 14-year-old Chicagoan, Gov. JB Pritzker Thursday signed a bill designating July 25 as Emmett Till Day in Illinois. Till was born July 25, 1941.

Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi and was killed for whistling at a white woman, an allegation which has since been recanted.

For State Rep. Kim du Buclet (D-Chicago), the story hits home. “My dad was from Grenada, Miss., and he too was almost lynched, and his family sent him here to Chicago to avoid the lynching, so he could’ve been Emmett Till, but, thankfully, he made it to Chicago.”

Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, famously insisted that her son lie in an open casket at his funeral, so the world could see what was done to him. Du Buclet said Mobley “changed history by refusing to allow the world to look away. She transformed the unimaginable grief into a movement for justice,” adding the images of the funeral “became a catalyst for the civil rights movement.”