NOP2000070804 - 8 JULY 2000 - KOKOMO, MISSISSIPPI, USA: Mamie Mobley, 78, whose 14-year-old son Emmett Till was killed in Mississippi in 1955, supposedly for whistling at a white woman, speaks July 8, to demonstrators in Kokomo, Miss. At left is Marie Johnson, who believes her 17-year-old son, Raynard, was lynched June 16, because he had been dating a white girl. Behind Mobley is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, demonstration organizer. mc/aj/A.J. Sisco UPI |
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The casket is what Till was buried in after the 14-year-old black Chicago native was lynched in 1955 in Money, Miss., for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Till's slaying was regarded as a spark for the civil right's movement.
After the U.S. Justice Department reopened Till's case, the casket was exhumed in 2005 and the slain teen was reburied in a new casket.
The original casket was found last week, discarded in a storage room at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., during an investigation into an alleged grave-reselling plot by cemetery workers. Four cemetery employees have been charged.