A gun used during the killing of Emmett Till is now on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. It’s a grim artifact from the 1955 lynching of a Black teenager at the hands of angry white men – a crime that galvanized the Civil Rights Movement.

“One of the reasons why this civil rights museum was created is to tell the unvarnished truth about what happened in terms of the Civil Rights Movement here in Mississippi,” Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums, said during a news conference Thursday. “That’s our mission, and I think the acquisition of this artifact is a part of our mission.”

The Foundation for Mississippi History acquired the .45-caliber pistol and holster for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The items came from “a Mississippi family t

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