The new Emmett Till Interpretive Center and the restored courthouse in Sumner will be the focus of an evening of grand opening events to be held Saturday.
The historic courthouse in Tallahatchie County was the site of the 1955 trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam for the murder of Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago who was visiting relatives near Money when he was abducted and killed.
Saturday’s events — which include a live performance of Thacker Mountain Radio from noon to 2 p.m. and remarks from politicians including U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran — will mark the official opening of the Interpretive Center as well as the reopening of the courthouse, which has been restored to its condition at the time of the trial.
All events are free and open to the public. Funding for the program was provided by the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi and by Guaranty Bank and Trust. Thacker Mountain Radio, which is broadcast Saturdays on MPB radio, is normally recorded Thursday evenings in Oxford. Alphonso Sanders, a saxophonist and professor of music at Mississippi Valley State University, will lead the program’s house band, the Yalobushwhackers.
Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Alysia Burton Steele, R&B singer Dorothy Moore and the Tutwiler Community Center Student Blues Band will also appear during the program.
Work on the restoration and construction of the interpretive center began more than seven years ago with the establishment of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, established by the Tallahatchie Board of Supervisors to work toward racial reconciliation and preserve the memory of Till.
The newly restored courthouse in Sumner was the focus of international media attention in September 1955 during the trial, at which an all-white jury acquitted Bryant and Milam of the murder after a brief deliberation. The pair later sold their confession to Look magazine.
Till’s badly beaten and disfigured body had been discovered weeks earlier in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down by a gin fan. He’d been tortured and murdered by Bryant and Milam, Bryant’s half-brother, after allegedly whistling at Bryant’s wife while she worked in Bryant’s Grocery in Money. The murder, Till’s open-casket funeral and the acquittal and later confession of his killers brought intense global press coverage and is widely credited with helping spark the civil rights movement.
Tallahatchie County leaders and members of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission said they hoped the opening of the new interpretive center and the restoration of the courthouse would help foster growth, cooperation and racial healing in Sumner and the surrounding community.
“It is a part of a larger vision for racial reconciliation, as we grapple with a very difficult past,” Devon Geary, project coordinator at the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, wrote in an email. “The Emmett Till case was a terrible miscarriage of justice, and its legacy has haunted our community. Our center’s grand opening demonstrates the community’s recognition of our painful history, our acknowledgement of the potential for division and violence without confronting our past, and our pledge to move forward in ensuring equal justice for all of our citizens.”
Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
