JACKSON, Miss. (AP) A Mississippi community with an elaborate Confederate monument plans to unveil a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, decades after white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager for allegedly whistling at a white woman in a country store.

The 1955 lynching became a catalyst for the civil rights movement after Tills mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago so the world could see the horrors inflicted on her 14-year-old son. Jet magazine published photos of his mutilated body, which had been pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

The 9-foot (2.7-meter) bronze statue in Greenwood is a jaunty depiction of the living Till in slacks, a dress shirt and a tie with one hand on the brim of a hat.

The Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., the last living witness to the kidnapping of his cousin Till from a family home, said he wont be able to travel from Illinois to attend Fridays dedication ceremony. But he told The Associated Press on Wednesday: We just thank God someone is keeping his name out there.

The Till statue at Greenwoods Rail Spike Park is a short drive from an elaborate Confederate monument outside the Leflore County Courthouse and about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the crumbling remains of the store, Bryants Grocery & Meat Market in the hamlet of Money.

The unveiling of the statue coincides with the release this month of Till, a movie focusing on Till-Mobleys private trauma over her sons death and her development into a civil rights activist.

A life-sized bronze statue of Till-Mobley is planned in the Chicago suburb of Summit. An Oct. 28 groundbreaking is set for a plaza outside Argo Community High School, where she was an honor student. The statue is scheduled to be in place by late April.