Just 35 days after being replaced, Emmett Till sign hit with bullets

Jerry Mitchell | Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Show Caption Hide Caption Author Devery S. Anderson on the Emmett Till Case Devery S. Anderson, author of "Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement," talks about the legacy of Till's shocking murder.

Just 35 days after a bullet-riddled Emmett Till sign was replaced, it has been shot again.

If the Emmett Till Memorial Commission were to replace the sign again, it would mark the fourth time it has been replaced.

The sign marks where Emmett Till's body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River.

Ever since the state began to memorialize Till, first with the naming of a highway after him in 2005, signs commemorating him have been frequent targets of vandalism.

The riverside marker at Graball Landing is the final site on the Civil Rights Driving Tour in Tallahatchie County.

"The Emmett Till Interpretive Center is committed to seeing the sign replaced," said co-founder Patrick Weems. "We have already begun plans to replace the sign and have notified local law enforcement about the vandalism.

"Our mission is to continue to tell the truth as it concerns the Emmett Till story. We are saddened by these events but are unwavering in our commitment to truth and racial reconciliation."

The state historical marker remembering the Ku Klux Klan’s 1964 killings of three civil rights workers has suffered a similar fate — repeatedly torn down and vandalized.

Six months after the commission installed the first sign, it disappeared.

Dave Tell, author of the upcoming book, “Remembering Emmett Till,” said tire tracks leading from the site to the riverbank led Sheriff William Brewer to conclude that the sign had been tossed into the Tallahatchie River, just as Till’s body was — “an irony not lost on the local black community.”

Not long after installing a second sign in 2013, the sign was riddled with bullets.

Tell said he believes it is best to leave the sign, rather than replace it.

“The bullet holes bear eloquent witness to the fact that work remains to be done,” he said, “that the memory of Till’s murder still cuts a rift through the heart of the modern day Delta.”

Alvin Sykes, president of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, agreed that the sign should remain as it is.

"The sign going back up is a sign of progress," he said. "The bullets are showing how much further we need to go."

