TALLAHATCHIE COUNTY, Miss. ― Despite vandals’ repeated attempts to erase the memory of Emmett Till from this community, a new memorial has been erected in honor of the civil rights martyr. And this time, it’s stronger than ever. Members of Till’s family gathered Saturday at Graball Landing, the spot where the 14-year-old’s brutalized body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River after his murder in 1955. Encircled by a vast cotton field and quintessential Mississippi flora, they watched as a new Till memorial was unveiled, this one 10 times heavier than the last, and made of bulletproof steel.

A new, bulletproof memorial for Emmett Till was erected on the shore of the Tallahatchie River today, after vandals’ repeated attempts to erase his memory here. pic.twitter.com/25hTobCfWl — Ja'han Jones (@_Jahan) October 19, 2019

Till’s lynching, which occurred after a white woman accused him of harassing her inside of a Mississippi grocery store, is largely seen as the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. “This marker answers the question as to what we do with our history,” said Reverend Willie Williams, co-director of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, which advocated for the new marker. “Do we learn from it? Do we use it to help our society have greater respect for humanity? This answers that.” Members of Till’s family, including his cousins Rev. Wheeler Parker — the last living witness of Till’s kidnapping ― and Ollie Gordon and her daughter Airickca Gordon-Taylor, were in attendance to christen the new marker. Unlike previous markers placed near the location, the new commemorative sign is made of reinforced steel and a thick acrylic layer. It is currently under the watch of surveillance cameras and may eventually be surrounded by a gate, according to the memorial commission. In July, a photo circulated online showed three Ole Miss students cheerfully posing with rifles beside a bullet-riddled Emmett Till memorial. That sign and others drawing attention to Till’s killing have been frequent, literal targets for vandals wanting to obscure and destroy his legacy.

Courtesy ProPublica and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting From left to right, Ole Miss students Ben LeClere, John Howe, and Howell Logan posing with guns by the bullet-ridden plaque marking the place where the body of murdered civil rights icon Emmett Till was pulled from the Tallahatchie River. The photo was posted to LeClere's Instagram account in March.