JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The gun used in the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till is now on display for the public to see, 70 years after the killing.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History unveiled the .45-caliber pistol and its holster during a news conference Thursday, which is the 70th anniversary of Till's murder.
The gun belonged to John William “J.W.” Milam who, alongside Roy Bryant, abducted Till from his great-uncle's home on Aug. 28, 1955. The white men tortured and killed Till after the teenager was accused of whistling at a white woman in a rural Mississippi grocery store.
Till's body was later found in the Tallahatchie River. Bryant and Milam were charged with Till's murder, but they were acquitted by an all-white-male jury.
Deborah Watts, the co-founder and execut