New owner to open Mississippi barn where Emmett Till was killed as a memorial site

The barn in Mississippi where 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured and killed will open to the public as a “sacred” memorial site by 2030, the new owner announced.

The Emmett Till Interpretive Center disclosed late Sunday that it had purchased the barn located in a rural area outside the city of Drew, aided by a $1.5 million donation from television producer and writer Shonda Rhimes.

“We think that where the worst harms have happened, the most healing is possible,” ETIC Executive Director Patrick Weems said.

The center plans to open the barn as a memorial ahead of the 75th anniversary of Till’s lynching in 1955.

Two white men publicly confessed to the killing after being acquitted by an all-white jury in Mississippi later that year, but a Justice Department report released in 2021 said at least one more, unnamed person was involved in Till’s abduction. Experts who’ve studied the case believe others participated, from a half-dozen to more than 14.

Till was abducted from his great-uncle’s home on Aug. 28, 1955, after the Chicago teenager was accused of whistling at a white woman in a rural Mississippi grocery store. According to accounts, the men took Till to the barn, where they tortured and killed him. His body was later found in the Tallahatchie River.

At Till’s funeral, his mother insisted on an open casket so the public could see the state of her son’s battered body. It was a pivotal moment in the emerging Civil Rights movement.

Weems said he hopes opening the barn to the public will encourage people to ask questions about a dark chapter in American history.

“Have we done enough? Is there justice yet? Has our society moved in the direction of human rights so that this sort of thing never happens?” Weems said.

The center will have the barn under 24-hour surveillance, and the property will be equipped with floodlights and security cameras, Weems said, calling those measures precautionary.

A historical marker, erected where Till’s body was discovered, has been replaced three times after being vandalized. The first marker was stolen and thrown into the river in 2008. The second was shot more than 100 times by 2014. It was replaced in 2018, and shot another 35 times. Now the marker is the only bulletproof historical marker in the country, according to Weems.

Weems noted that Sunday, the day the barn was purchased, was the birthday of Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Till’s mother was a civil rights activist in the aftermath of her son’s death and died in 2003.