Sumner's courthouse square holds two buildings that answer each other. The Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse, a brick Romanesque building with a corner tower, is where Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam were tried in September 1955 for the murder of Emmett Till. Moses Wright, his great-uncle, stood in the courtroom and identified the men who had taken the boy from his house, and Till's mother, Mamie Till Bradley, testified. All five of the town's private lawyers defended Bryant and Milam without fee, and on 23 September an all-white jury of twelve men acquitted them after deliberating a little over an hour.
Across the street the Emmett Till Interpretive Center opened in 2015. It grew from a multiracial commission begun in 2006 by Jerome Little, the first Black president of the county board of supervisors. In 2007 that commission apologized to the Till family from the courthouse steps, stating that racial reconciliation begins with telling the truth. The courtroom was restored to its 1955 appearance and the whole building by 2020. In 2023 the courthouse became part of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument.
The monument's Mississippi sites also include Graball Landing, on the Tallahatchie River at the end of a gravel road, where Till's body was recovered. The signs placed there were stolen, shot, scarred with acid and thrown into the river before a bulletproof one went up in 2019. The center offers tours and can tell you how to reach the landing. Plan to go quietly and to spend time listening.
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