A memorial sign honoring Emmett Till, who was murdered as teen, has been vandalized with bullet holes again after being replaced a little more than a month ago.
The sign was erected outside of Glendale, Mississippi, where Till’s body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River in 1955.
Patrick Weems, co-founder of The Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi, said he was disappointed to see the sign riddled with bullet holes again after being replaced just 35 days prior.
“To drive up and see it like that, I was sad,” he said to The New York Times. “When we finally replaced it, it was an amazing feeling that this sign that had been obliterated was finally restored.”
The sign marks the spot where 14-year-old Till’s body was dumped after two white men lynched, beat and tortured him before dumping him in the river.
Till, who was black, was attacked after being accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. The two men were acquitted of his murder and Ms. Bryant recanted her story decades later.
Till’s death became one of the founding moments of the civil rights movement after media displayed the extent of Till’s injuries at his open-casket funeral.
The memorial sign was erected in 2007 and has had to be replaced multiple times. While no one has found the vandal, Mr. Weems said, “My sense is that it only takes one person to do this.”
Dave Tell, who wrote an upcoming book about Till, said the sign’s vandalism shows the fight for racial equality isn’t over.
“The bullet holes bear eloquent witness to the fact that work remains to be done,” he said to The Clarion Ledger. “That the memory of Till’s murder still cuts a rift through the heart of the modern-day Delta.”
Till’s case was reopened in August after the Justice Department said it received “new information.”
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