Their hate is real and it knows no boundaries.
The historical sign marking where Emmett Till’s body was found in the Tallahatchie River in 1955 has been riddled with bullets.
Since the Emmett Till Memorial Commission put up eight markers in Tallahatchie County in 2008, the sign near the river has been a repeated target of vandals.
It’s one of a number of civil rights markers and symbols that have been vandalized in Mississippi over the past decade.
“These are easy targets, a low-risk outlet for racism,” said Dave Tell, an associate professor at the University of Kansas who is part of the Emmett Till Memory Project.
Some people mistakenly see “civil rights monuments as a form of reverse discrimination, a threat to their own well-being,” he said.
On Sept. 23, 1955, an all-white, all-male jury acquitted half-brothers Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam of Till’s murder.
Months later, the two men confessed to Look magazine they had indeed killed Till.
