By Dave Tell | The Conversation
In August of 1955, Emmett Till was lynched in the Mississippi Delta. The 14-year-old African American reportedly whistled at a white woman, violating the racial norms of the Jim Crow South. For this supposed infraction, he was abducted, tortured, shot and dropped in a river with a cotton gin fan tied to his neck.
Yet for 49 years and 11 months, his murder was all but forgotten in the Delta – the first memorial to Till wasn’t dedicated until July 1, 2005.
