JACKSON, miss. (AP) – Two Mississippi civil rights museums are celebrating Emmett Till’s 80th birthday on Sunday by letting people in for free.
The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Museum of Mississippi History in Jackson also offer tours on Sundays from 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm. The museums also currently have an exhibition entitled “I AM A MAN: Civil Rights Photographs in the American South, 1960-1970”.
Till was 14 years old when two white men kidnapped, beat, and lynched the black Chicago teenager visiting his family in Mississippi.
The men said Till flirted with a white woman in a shop and was acquitted by an all-white jury.
Till’s mother insisted on an open coffin funeral, and photos of the teen’s horribly beaten body were featured in magazines across the country, making him an important figure in the fight for civil rights and against racism.
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