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Emmett Till case reopened
This is monumental, one of the ugliest chapters of the racial horrors perpetrated in the early days of the civil rights movement.
Justice Dept. reopening investigation of 1955 killing of black youth in Mississippi
By Curt Anderson, Associated Press *|* May 10, 2004
WASHINGTON --The Justice Department said Monday it is reopening the investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a teenager whose death while visiting Mississippi was an early catalyst for the civil rights movement.
Till was abducted from his uncle's home in Money, Miss., on Aug. 28, 1955. The mutilated body of the 14-year-old from Chicago was found by fishermen three days later in the Tallahatchie River.
Pictures of the slaying shocked the world. Two white men charged with murder -- Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam -- were acquitted by an all-white jury. Both men have since died.
Justice Department officials did not say what prompted them to reopen the case. Details of the renewed investigation, which also involves officials in Mississippi, were to be announced Monday by R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights.
The NAACP and other individuals and groups have called repeatedly for reopening the case, which has been the subject of documentary films and books. In a 2003 letter to Mississippi officials, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said it was "time to address what remains an ugly mark" in state and U.S. history.
Other civil rights-era killings in Mississippi have been reopened with mixed results.
In 1994, Byron de la Beckwith was convicted of the 1963 murder of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers. But there has been little progress in an effort to bring murder charges for the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss. Those killings were chronicled in the film "Mississippi Burning."*
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