Overview

• Mississippi officials unveiled an Ithaca .45-caliber pistol and holster linked to J.W. Milam, authenticated by a serial-number match to FBI records, for display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
• The weapon was acquired from a Mississippi family that requested anonymity and is now part of the museum’s permanent Emmett Till exhibition.
• Till’s cousin Deborah Watts said the timing felt painful, questioning whether associating the weapon with the anniversary was appropriate, even as she supports preserving the story.
• Family members and supporters re-created Till’s 1955 train journey from Chicago to Greenwood, led by Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., the last living eyewitness to the kidnapping, and continued ceremonies in Illinois and Mississippi.
• Earlier this month, the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board released 6,510 pages of federal documents related to the case, adding context to decades of investigations that have produced no new prosecutions.