After being hidden away from public view, the gun used to kill Emmett Till is now on display
Share
Explore Our Galleries
Breaking News!
Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.
Ways to Support ABHM?
By Rebekah Riess, CNN
The weapon used to kill Black teenager Emmett Till in one of the most notorious lynchings that helped ignite the civil rights movement is now on display at a museum in the Deep South.
Emmett was just 14 when he was kidnapped from his great-uncle’s house by two White men who later admitted to beating and torturing the teen before shooting him in the head and throwing his body into the Tallahatchie River, weighed down by a 75-pound cotton gin fan.
The .45-caliber pistol and worn saddle-brown holster, marked with the initials J.M., are part of an exhibit at the state’s Two Mississippi Museums – the interconnected Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum – that aims to tell “the whole story” 70 years after Emmett’s murder.
Emmett’s murder in the Jim Crow South, and his mother’s decision to hold a public open-casket funeral where thousands saw Emmett’s mangled body, sparked global outrage and accelerated the civil rights movement in America.
Read on to learn who had the gun.
Discover the truth of the Jim Crow era.
Comments Are Welcome
Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.
Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.
See our full Comments Policy here.