- A sign marking the spot where Emmett Till's body was pulled from a river in Mississippi after being lynched in 1955 has been defaced for a third time.
- The first sign installed by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in 2007 was thrown in the river, and the second was riddled with more than 40 bullets when it was installed in 2013.
- That torn up sign was replaced in June, but was shot up again just 35 days later.
- The 14-year-old Till was beaten and shot to death after allegations of physically assaulting a white woman, who later recanted her story.
- His death was a huge national story at the time and helped spark the civil rights movement.
A sign memorializing lynching victim Emmett Till has been shot up, a little more than a month after being replaced for a third time.
The sign, marking the spot where the 14-year-old black child's body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in 1955, was first put up by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in 2007. Six months later, that sign was stolen.
The center put a new sign up in 2013, and not long after it was found riddled with more than 40 bullets.
On June 12, the center finally decided to put up a new sign. But just 35 days later the sign was shot up again — sparking the ire of the center, Till's relatives, and civil rights activists.
"The Emmett Till Interpretive Center is committed to seeing the sign replaced," cofounder Patrick Weems told the Clarion-Ledger. "We have already begun plans to replace the sign and have notified local law enforcement about the vandalism."
He added: "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."
Weems told The New York Times that he is already in talks with two companies in New York who agreed to design and create a new sign out of steel, which he said would be stronger than the current sign. Both have agreed that they would supply it free of charge.
Till was 14 years old in the summer of 1955 when his mother sent him to Mississippi to visit family.
On August 24, he visited a grocery store in Money, Mississippi, to buy candy, and the white woman working at he counter, Carolyn Bryant, claimed that Till grabbed her by the waist and uttered obscenities. She later recanted that story in 2008.
The claim infuriated Bryant's husband, who four days later kidnapped Till from his bed in the middle of the night, with the help of his half-brother J.W. Milam.
The two then took Till to a barn where they brutally beat the boy and then shot him to death. They then dumped his body in the river, tying his head to a cotton gin with barbed wire so the body would sink.
Both men stood trial for Till's murder but were acquitted by an all-white jury. They confessed to the killing in a magazine interview a year later but couldn't be retried due to double jeopardy clauses.
Till's mother demanded an open casket funeral, and photos of his mangled body were published in newspapers across the country — stirring up outrage that helped spark the civil rights movement.
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