In August 1955 a horrendous crime was committed when a 14 year old boy, Emmett Till, was brutally murdered in Mississippi. I was only a baby at the time of his death, but I remember when I later learned about it and could barely believe such evil had happened. Even today — decades later — I choose to refrain from writing about his death and the real sorrow it evokes and will focus instead on the memorial sign and the hope associated with it.

According to Tara Law’s recent article in “Time” magazine about the  Emmett Till memorial, here is where it stands so to speak….

“A repeatedly-vandalized sign remembering the death Emmett TiIll, a 14-year-old boy whose August 1955 murder in Mississippi called attention to the epidemic of racist violence against African Americans, will be replaced with a bulletproof sign, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission has said.

The sign, which has been replaced three times since it was first erected in 2007, will be replaced with a metal marker weighing between 500 and 600 pounds, Patrick Weems, the commission’s executive director, tells TIME.

Vandals have repeatedly attacked the sign and previous markers. In a little over a decade, the signs have been tossed in a river, splattered with acid, shot up, defaced with KKK graffiti and stolen, according to the commission.

‘What gives us hope is that the country cares,’ Weems says. ‘Our county is one of the poorest in the nation. These signs have been put up with private funds from the community…. We have moral responsibility to make sure that the sign keeps getting put back up,’ he said.” (Tara Law)

Tara Law may be contacted at [email protected].

Donations may be made to Emmett Till Memorial Commission (a 501C3 organization).

“But the one who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:11)

“If someone says,’I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen, and this commandment we have from Him that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” (1 John 4:20, 21)