The Emmett Till Interpretive Center has bought a barn outside Drew, Mississippi, where 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured and killed in 1955.
Why it matters: The purchase of the barn, which has changed private ownership over decades, now secures one of the most significant sites in American civil rights history.
Driving the new: The acquisition ensures the site won't be lost to development or destruction, as many historical locations tied to anti-Black violence have been.
- "Our board voted to pay the $1.5 million that was necessary to protect the site," the center said in a statement.
- "We chose preservation over risk, and truth over silence — because you can't put a price on our history."
The big picture: The barn is among the most critical physical remnants of Till's murder, a killing that helped ignite the modern civil rights movement.
- "The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi" by Wright Thompson, released in 2024, uses the barn and its land as a lens to examine deep‐rooted structural racism, land and power while looking at Till's lynching.
- He describes how witnesses heard Till's cry for help and how other Black Americans looked away from the barn when passing by through the decades.
- Following the lynching, Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted the world see her son's brutalized body, igniting anger and the drive for equal rights for Black Americans.
Zoom in: The purchase was made possible through a gift from The Rhimes Foundation, founded by producer Shonda Rhimes, the center said.
- The announcement on Sunday coincided with what would have been Till-Mobley's 104th birthday.
- The current owner preserved the barn by not tearing it down, but he also used it for storage, the center said. It was never treated as a historic or sacred place.
What they're saying: "This is a monumental achievement in our mission to preserve the complete truth of Emmett Till's story," said Patrick Weems, the center's executive director.
- "Without this purchase, this sacred ground could have been destroyed or lost forever. We saved it so that truth could keep shaping us and future generations can stand where history happened."
State of play: The Emmett Till Interpretive Center has spent nearly two decades preserving sites connected to Till's murder — from the Tallahatchie County Courthouse to the riverside location where his body was recovered.
- The center has often had to fight vandalism of the sites.
- The barn acquisition is widely viewed as its most consequential achievement yet.
Flashback: In 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam lynched Till after Bryant's wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham, accused Till of propositioning her despite witness accounts saying he whistled at her.
- Till crossed paths with Donham, who was then 20, at the grocery store she ran with her husband in Mississippi.
- Within days, Donham's husband and brother-in-law abducted and lynched Till after brutally mutilating his body.
An all-white jury cleared the two white men in 1955, though they admitted to killing Till in an interview a year later.
- Till's case brought international attention to the racism and inequities in the U.S. justice system that many feel still exist today.
- In 2008, Donham reportedly recanted her allegation that Till had harassed her before his murder, though federal investigators say she later denied doing so. She died in 2023.
What's next: The center plans to open the barn to the public as a permanent memorial by 2030, around the 75th anniversary of Till's lynching.
- It will serve as a place for reflection, education and historical reckoning, shaped with input from historians, preservationists and Mississippi Delta community members.
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