After being habitually defaced by vandals, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission announced that they will replace the Mississippi's current Emmett Till memorial with a new, bulletproof sign.
The sign that indicates where Till's body was pulled out of the Tallahatchie River in 1955 has been vandalized on multiple occasions since it was erected in 2007. The sign was stolen after it was unveiled. After replacing the memorial, it was riddled with bullets on several occasions. Recently, three white Ole Miss students took a picture in front of the sign brandishing guns. Once the picture went viral, defacing/shootings of the sign started to increase. The commission removed the sign afterward.
The executive director of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, Patrick Weems, told CNN that the organization plans to replace the memorial in October with a bulletproof sign. Currently, Brooklyn's Lite Brite Neon Studio is working on constructing a 600-pound sign that is made of reinforced steel.
"We won't stop. There will be another sign up," the commission's treasurer, Rev. Willie Williams, told CNN. "This particular area will go forward in the long run. Because this legacy and this story, it's much bigger than any of us."
In addition to replacing the sign, the commission has asked local authorities to start an investigation into Ole Miss incident. The commission hopes that a thorough investigation and the story surrounding the picture will bring awareness to their plight.
"The hope is that there are people around this country who care about this story," Weems said. "That Emmett Till did not die in vain. His mother didn't allow him to die in vain and we have a sacred oath to make sure that these sites go back up."
