Vandals deface Emmett Till marker in Miss.
In October, a Mississippi historical marker for Emmett Till was riddled with bullet holes in a savage act of vandalism.
Now, less than a year later, a second state historical marker has been defaced, obliterating information about the black teenager whose name became a civil rights rallying cry after he was kidnapped and lynched in 1955.
The slaying galvanized the movement when Till’s mother, Mamie TillMobley, had an open-casket funeral in Chicago to showhowher son had been brutalized while visiting the Mississippi Delta.
The sign was erected in 2011 for the Mississippi Freedom Trail, a series of state-fundedmarkers at civil rights sites. It stands within yards of the business — Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market — where Carolyn Bryant, 21, a white shopkeeper, alleged that Till, 14, offended her by whistling.
“Who knows what motivates people to do this?” AllanHammons, owner of a public relations firm that producedthe sign located in Money, Miss. “Vandals have been around since the beginning of time.”
A separate Till marker, near the site where his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, has been repeatedly shot. It was erected by a private group, and money has been raised to replace it.
Hammons said the Freedom Trail marker inMoney cost over $8,000; repairs will cost at least $500.
Hammons said the sign defacement involved someone pulling “vinyl panels” with words and images of Till off the back of the marker, he said.
An all-white jury acquitted Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half brother, J.W. Milam, in the killing, but the two men later confessed in a paid interview with Look magazine.