https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/memorial-murdered-boy-emmett-till-has-been-shot-again-180969928/
1955, the body of 14 year old Emmett Till was pulled from the Tallahatchie River near Glendora, Mississippi. He had been brutalized, beaten, and murdered by two men. His crime? He was African American and in Mississippi. Emmett was from Chicago and was visiting his great uncle during the summer of 1955. At a local grocery store, he allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, the wife of the store’s owner, Roy Bryant. Roy, and his half brother J.W. Milam, kidnapped Emmett from his bed in the middle of the night and drove him to the river where they brutalized and eventually killed. They used barbed wire to tie a cotton gin fan around his neck with the desire to sink his body in the river. His body was found, however. He was so badly beaten that his great uncle could only identify him by the ring he was wearing. Plans were made to bury him in a local town but his mother insisted that his body be returned to Chicago for burial. In an open casket, his brutalized and beat body brought the brutality of southern lynchings to the national Civil Rights Movement. His casket is on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. Roy and his half brother were put on trial after pleading guilty to kidnapping. They were acquitted of murder by an all white jury within an hour after the start of deliberation. The members of the County government along with activists formed the Emmett Till Memorial Commission to atone for their racial past. In 2007, the commission put a sign commemorating his lynching on the spot where Emmett’s body was removed from the river. This sign was vandalized three times. Once it was stolen and believed to be thrown in the river. Two other times the sign where riddled with bullets. The most recent vandalism occur this month just 35 days after a new sign was installed in July 2018. The sign is tucked down a back road so someone had to intentionally find the sign to vandalize it. It appears that racial hatred still raises its ugly head in Mississippi.
Whether or not to reopen Emmett’s case is in discussion although the two men that committed this crime are deceased. It has been 63 years he was brutalized and murdered. The first memorial sign was put in place 52 years after his murder. Other lynching memorials are cropping up around the south at other lynching sites. The National Museum of Peace and Justice in Montgomery Alabama has a display full of dirt and sand taken from various lynching sites.
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