http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=728641

Body to Be Exhumed in 1955 Racial Killing

Body of Emmett Till, Black Youth Whose 1955 Death Galvanized Civil Rights Movement, to Be Exhumed

By DON BABWIN Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

CHICAGO May 4, 2005 — A half century after the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till shocked a nation and galvanized the civil rights movement, his body will be exhumed as authorities attempt to determine who killed him, the FBI said Wednesday.

Till's body, buried in a cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Alsip, will be exhumed within the next few weeks for an autopsy, said Deborah Madden, spokeswoman for the FBI office in Jackson, Miss.

The Justice Department announced plans last year to reopen the Till investigation, citing several pieces of information that included a documentary by New York filmmaker Keith Beauchamp.

"The exhumation is a logical continuation of that," Madden said. "An autopsy was never performed on the body and the cause of death was never determined."

Till, who was raised in Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in the tiny Mississippi Delta community of Money on Aug. 28, 1955, reportedly for whistling at a white woman at a grocery store. His mutilated body was found by fishermen three days later in the Tallahatchie River. It was unrecognizable and his mother was only able to identify the teenager because she recognized a ring on his finger.

In Mississippi, District Attorney Joyce Chiles of Greenville said that she hopes the autopsy will positively identify Till as well as lead to a cause of death.

During a trial that ultimately led to the acquittal of two men on charges they murdered Till, defense attorneys suggested that the body was not Till's and that Till was still alive.

"If there is a prosecution at the end of this investigation then we hope to dispel any notion that Emmett Till was not murdered," Chiles said.

She also said that since an autopsy was never conducted, there is a chance that some evidence, such as a bullet, is still with the remains. Neither she nor Madden knew why an autopsy was never conducted.

The planned exhumation was applauded by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who had urged the Justice Department to re-open the investigation.

I applaud the FBI for doing this. It is like the Medgar Evers case a few years back. This sends the message that no matter how long ago it was, it is still wrong. As MLK said, "An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere."

Just look at what they did to this poor kid.

That's all the more reason, I find RACISTS impossible to tolerate. More than likely those who committed this hideous crime are probably dead since it's 50 years ago. So, unfortunately they more than likely got away with it.

Didn't they make a movie out of this, because it seems like I have seen something about this a couple of years ago.

OMG. That picture is horrible.

Had this been a white person, I'm sure an autopsy would've been performed at the time of death. I can't imagine what they can learn from an autopsy now (short of the bullet they mentioned that they might find), although I suppose it could show if he was beaten or bludgeoned or some other violent act perpetrated against him. What a horrible case. And the people who probably did it went free. While nothing can bring Emmett Till back, I hope justice can be served.

Maybe they can do something with dna now.

Plus it keeps it in the news.

This and events like this should never be forgotten.
Because recently things have happened again (the guy dragged in his car, Matthew Shepard, etc.)

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.a...w=wn_wire_story

Body of black lynching victim exhumed in Illinois
Wednesday, June 01, 2005 1:01 p.m. ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The FBI on Wednesday exhumed the body of a black teenager killed in a Mississippi lynching 50 years ago, hoping to shed light on an unsolved crime that symbolized the raw history of race relations in America.

A burial vault with a casket containing the body of Emmett Till was unearthed with the help of a backhoe beneath a white tent over his grave site. Family members held a brief prayer service there beforehand inside a quiet suburban cemetery near Chicago.

In the summer of 1955 Till was 14 and living in Chicago when he visited relatives in Mississippi, then the very heart of the segregated Old South. He allegedly whistled at and talked to a white woman in a store, for which he was kidnapped and killed.

His battered body turned up in the Tallahatchie River near Money, Mississippi, weighed down by a cotton gin fan tied with barbed wire to his neck. He appeared to have been tortured and shot.

Two white men, one of them married to the woman with whom Till allegedly flirted, were charged with his killing but acquitted by an all-white Mississippi jury.

The men later described in a magazine interview how they had beaten Till but the two could not be tried again because they had been acquitted.

Both are now dead but a recent documentary, "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till," by New York filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, turned up witnesses to the crime who indicated several people were involved.

The FBI is looking for evidence to see if its possible to still bring charges at the state level. It was not clear, however, what the exhumation would accomplish beyond proving that the body is that of Till, and some experts have said it was likely to yield little else. No autopsy was ever performed.

In announcing its investigation a year ago the U.S. Justice Department said it had received new information and wanted to determine if any prosecutions were still possible in Mississippi.

At the time one official called the Till case a "grotesque miscarriage of justice" that still "stands at the crossroads of the American civil rights movement."

Till's burial vault was placed on a flatbed truck, covered with a blue tarp, and hauled away to the Cook County morgue for an examination.

After his death Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, ordered her son's disfigured face displayed in an open coffin in Chicago. She died in 2003 and was buried next to her son.

His body was viewed by tens of thousands of people and photographs carried the horrors of lynchings in the American South to millions.

His death and a subsequent bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, triggered by Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat, together helped spur the civil rights movement.

The Chicago Historical Society, which is opening an exhibit on lynchings in America, said experts have been unable to determine how many hate crime-related deaths occurred in the country's history but they are believed to number "in the thousands."

Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.

Hey, AGIML--You did it! :clap:

Thanks E.M., it sure can be frustrating trying to make something work. :)

That poor boy. Horrible.

emmet will never b for gotten and may he be restin in the lap of are Omdeygod...god bless the family and forgive the two childish deamons who did that to and angel of god........