Train Journey Commemorates 70th Anniversary of Emmett Till Murder

Relatives, civil-rights veterans and preservation groups are marking the 70th anniversary of Emmett Till’s murder with a symbolic rail journey that retraces the 14-year-old’s 1955 trip from Chicago to Mississippi. The Amtrak City of New Orleans pulled out of Chicago’s Union Station at 8:05 p.m. on Wednesday, carrying Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr.—Till’s cousin and the last surviving eyewitness to the abduction—alongside historians, activists and supporters. Organised by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and the National Parks Conservation Association, the delegation is due to arrive in Greenwood, Mississippi, on Thursday, 28 August, the date Till’s body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River seven decades ago. Events planned after arrival will honour Till’s legacy and highlight how his mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to hold an open-casket funeral galvanised the modern U.S. civil-rights movement.