The sign marking the site where Emmett Till was said to have whistled at a white woman in 1955 has been vandalized. This is the second time in two months the sign at the Bryant Grocery Store has been tampered with.
Allan Hammons, whose company manages the Mississippi Freedom Trail, says that the first incident involved someone scratching the marker. This time, the back of the sign, which contains information about Till, was peeled away. The Freedom Trail is a series of markers commemorating figures with pivotal roles in the civil rights movement.
This Emmett Till sign was vandalized. It’s telling that the vandal tried to, quite literally, erase the history. https://t.co/bcLup91KMd pic.twitter.com/H6PUpBJm5L
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) June 26, 2017
“People were outraged and shocked at this incredible criminal act,” he said. “What Mississippi chose to do by creating the freedom trail was committing themselves to telling the unvarnished truth.”
The repairs to the sign are absolutely necessary, and Hammons says that it will cost about $500 to fix the sign. Last year, a sign marking the site where Till was killed was riddled with bullet holes. Till’s sign is reportedly the only sign on the Mississippi Freedom Trail that has been vandalized.