70 years after Emmett Till's murder, Mississippi museum acquires gun used to kill him
Briefly

Mississippi has added a pistol believed to be the weapon used to kill Emmett Till to the state archives. Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black teenager from Chicago, was kidnapped, tortured, shot and dumped in a river after reportedly whistling at a white shopkeeper. The killing sparked global outrage and helped galvanize civil rights activism. The gun and its leather holster are housed in a conservation lab and have had a strong emotional impact on collections staff. Wheeler Parker Jr., Till's cousin and the last living eyewitness, recalls the visit, the wolf whistle and the subsequent abduction.
JACKSON, Miss. It's been 70 years since the lynching of Emmett Till, a Black teenager from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Mississippi. White men kidnapped, tortured, shot, and dumped him in a river for whistling at a white shopkeeper. His killing drew global outrage and galvanized civil rights activists. Now the state of Mississippi is adding to its collection of artifacts from the crime the murder weapon.
"It's been something that I've always wondered about for 70 years," says Wheeler Parker Jr., Emmett Till's cousin. They were close, growing up next door to one another in Chicago. In the summer of 1955, Till, age 14, and Parker, 16, made the trip together to visit relatives in Mississippi. He is the last living eyewitness to what happened 70 years ago. Now 86, his memories are still vivid.
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