The death of Emmett Till is still discussed to this day. The teenage boy was found mutilated near the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at a white woman, and now the sign that marks where Till was found has been vandalized.
The New York Daily News reports that filmmaker Kevin Wilson Jr. posted a disturbing picture to Facebook of the sign riddled with several bullet holes. The text on the sign is nearly illegible because of the damage done. A similar incident occurred in 2013; a replacement sign in the same location was shot 30 times, and before that, the original sign was torn down by vandals in 2008.
The sign is one of eight site-markers erected by the Emmett Till Memorial Commission in 2007 in order to encourage tourism and to raise money for a museum dedicated to Till’s memory.
Adversely, the home of one of Till’s murderers (J.W. Milam) is adorned with flowers and untouched. Milam and Roy Bryant were acquitted by an all-white jury for Till’s death, but later admitted to the act.
“Again. We have a long way to go,” wrote Wilson Jr. in the caption for the picture of Milam’s house.
“The Emmett Till Interpretive Center is raising money to fund the project and replace the bullet-riddled sign,” reported the publication. “So far they’ve raised over $500 of its $15,000 goal.”