Tallahatchie Civil Rights Driving Tour
This is the virtual version of the physical tour first created by the Emmett Till Memorial Commission in 2008. It includes the Delta Inn. The Delta Inn was on the original tour, but the sign was stolen and never replaced.
Emmett Till Interpretive Center
The Nonprofit that told Till's Story
The Emmett Till Memorial Commission has done more for the memory of Emmett Till than any other organization in the world. Since its founding in late 2005, the Commission has transformed the landscape of Tallahatchie County. They have created a 9-site driving tour (10 sites if you count the…
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Sumner Courthouse
The Trial, the Architecture, the Controversy
For nearly 50 years, the murder of Emmett Till was not commemorated in Tallahatchie County. Even the courthouse itself hid the story. Only recently has the second district Tallahatchie County Courthouse been used to tell Till's story.
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Delta Inn
Did a Lawyer Steal a Sign?
Built in 1920, the Delta Inn was a mansion that was the center of midcentury Sumner society and, during the trial, the site at which the jury was sequestered. With the help of renowned photographer Maude Schuyler Clay, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission crafted noncontroversial prose about the…
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The Murder of Clinton Melton
Another Murder, Another White Man, Another Acquittal. Or How County Lines Are Shaping Till's Story
In December 1955, J. W. Milam’s neighbor (and Till murder accomplice) Elmer Kimbrell murdered African American gas station attendant Clinton Melton.
Kimbrell was irate because Melton had filled his entire gas tank instead of simply putting in $2 as he had supposedly requested. Based on this…
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King's Place
How an Anonymous Tip, a Juke Joint, and Two Lost Witnesses could have changed the course of history.
On Sunday, September 18, 1955, reporter James Hicks of the Afro-American was in Sumner preparing to cover the Emmett Till murder trial. Looking for a pre-trial story, Hicks stopped by the biracial funeral of “Kid” Townsend—a well-liked black man who had recently passed of a heart attack. Because…
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Homesite of J. W. Milam
The Site of an Influential Fiction
In 2008, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission (ETMC) erected a sign at this spot. Although nothing remains except an overgrown field, in 1955 this was the site of J.W. Milam's home and, critically, his shed.
The sign claims that Till was beaten here in the shed that once stood on this spot. This is…
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Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center
The ETHIC Musuem
Originally the Glendora Cotton Gin, Glendora Mayor Johnny B. Thomas transformed this building into one of the earliest Till museums in the world: the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center (the ETHIC museum).
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The Sign at Sharkey Bridge
How History Goes Wrong. A Sign that Tells the Wrong Story
The Emmett Till Memorial Commission originally planned for only a single river site sign to mark the spot of the body’s recovery. It was to be placed at Graball Landing, 2.6 miles downstream of this site. This sign was a last-minute addition to direct tourists down the lonely River Road towards…
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Graball Landing
Locals believe that Till was pulled from the river at this site
This oft-vandalized site has become the center of a national conversation on race and vandalism. Signs from this spot have been stolen, replaced, shot, replaced again, and shot again. One of the signs ended up at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History; a second sign is now touring the country as part of a traveling exhibit created by the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
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Tutwiler Funeral Home
The Body's Last Stop in Mississippi
Operated by town Mayor Chick Nelson, the Tutwiler Funeral Home played an essential role in the acquittal of the murderers and in the dissemination of a once-common myth that Till had not been killed.
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