The gas station tied to the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till will be restored, the Associated Press reports.
The gas station involved in the story of Emmett Till, who was lynched in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman, will be restored, The Associated Press reports.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is providing $152,000 to restore Ben Roy’s Service Station, which stands next to what used to be Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, once owned by Carolyn Bryant—the woman Till was said to have whistled at.
Till, a Black 14-year-old from Chicago visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta, was killed and mutilated by Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, in 1955. They were both acquitted by an all-white jury, but confessed to the crime in an article in Look magazine.
The Greenwood Commonwealth told the AP the station will be restored as part of the Mississippi Civil Rights Historical Program.
In July, hope for an Emmett Till memorial became lost when Carolyn Towns, who promised Till’s mother that she would build a museum for her son, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for her part in a $100,000 grave-digging scheme.
(Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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