Memorial To Emmett Till Blasted With Bullets, Vandalized Repeatedly

A memorial sign dedicated to the place where Emmett Till's mangled body was discovered floating in the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi in 1955 has been riddled with bullet holes. It has been vandalized repeatedly since it was mounted in 2007 while a similar sign that marks the home of the murderer is adorned with flowers.

The 14-year-old black Chicago teen's racially charged murder turned out to be a catalyst in the civil rights movement. He was murdered on August 28, 1955 by two white men, J.W. Milan and Roy Bryant when Till whistled at Bryant's wife to impress his cousins and other boys while he visited his uncle in Money, Miss. Till's killers were initially declared innocent by the jury comprising of all white people, however, the accused later confessed to kidnapping, agonizing and murdering the teen.

In 2007, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission erected 8 site-markers. One was mounted at the location where Till's mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River three days after the murder was committed. Till had a cotton gin fan around his neck with barbed wire, many of his teeth and left eye were missing, and a bullet hole in his right temple was found.

Kevin Wilson, Jr., a filmmaker and Facebook user, recently visited the memorial only to find that the sign board had been shot dozens of times, rendering the text almost illegible. On the contrary, the killer's home sign board was well-preserved and decorated with flowers.

This has not been the first time when the sign board was shot or vandalized. It had been stolen in 2007 and the replacement sign board was shot first in 2013. Since then the board has been shot from various angles. The local authorities assured at that time to preserve the boards and not let such incidents occur again, according to RawStory.

So somebody shot up the marker where Emmett Till's body was found. 30 bulletholes: pic.twitter.com/4dz5uekUlz

— Christopher Hooks (@cd_hooks) December 28, 2013

"It shows that there's still people who do not want to remember or talk about Emmett Till," Patrick Weems, a project coordinator for the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, told the Daily News.

According to reports, the Emmett Till Interpretive Centre is raising funds to replace the damaged sign board and have collected around $500 of its goal of $15,000.