JACKSON, miss. (WJTV) – The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum offered free entry to commemorate Emmett Till’s 80th birthday on Sunday.
Emmett Till was born in Chicago on July 25, 1941. In August 1955, he was kidnapped and brutally lynched by two white men while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi.
The 14-year-old was accused of flirting with a white woman in a local general store. Till’s death sparked civil rights movements across the country as numerous activists fought to end racial discrimination and injustice in the south.
People said Till’s death wasn’t in vain.
“The story we’re repeating is meant to serve Emmet Till’s birthday. Today this war is already won for me, we just have to put the right faces in the right places to recognize a story that is reborn and restored where everyone can come together, ”said Bobbi Ruth Primer.
Till’s mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on an open coffin funeral so the world could see what was being done to her son. The Mississippi NAACP Secretary of State Medgar Evers helped investigate Till’s murder, but no further prosecution was initiated even after the confession.
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