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Emmett Till's Casket Found 'Rusted, Battered'

Locals search for loved ones' graves at desecrated cemetery

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted Jul 10, 2009 9:57 AM CDT

(Newser) – As Chicagoans mourned the desecration of a historic cemetery, the casket of civil rights icon Emmett Till was found rusted in a shack amid garbage and gravestones, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. “When we opened it up trying to find what we have, a family of possums ran out,” said the county sheriff. Till’s body had been exhumed in 2005 during an investigation of his 1955 killing.

The casket, displayed worldwide after Till’s death at age 14, a watershed of the civil rights movement, was meant to be used in a memorial. One of four workers charged in a body-excavation scheme at Burr Oak cemetery allegedly kept donations for the memorial for herself. Locals gathered at the cemetery to check on loved ones’ graves for fear they’d been dug up. “This is like having a funeral all over again,” said one.

Family members search for the graves of relatives July 9, 2009, after graves were discovered dug up and bodies dumped into unmarked mass graves in an alleged scheme to resell the plots.
Family members search for the graves of relatives July 9, 2009, after graves were discovered dug up and bodies dumped into unmarked mass graves in an alleged scheme to resell the plots.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
The Rev. Jesse Jackson stands in an area in the rear of Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip Ill. Thursday, July 9, 2009.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson stands in an area in the rear of Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip Ill. Thursday, July 9, 2009.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, and Rev. Jesse Jackson talk before a news conference as family members search for the graves of relatives at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., Thursday, July 9, 2009.
Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, and Rev. Jesse Jackson talk before a news conference as family members search for the graves of relatives at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., Thursday, July 9, 2009.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This undated file photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago whose weighted body was found in the Tallahatchie River near the Delta community of Money, Miss., on Aug. 31, 1955.
This undated file photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago whose weighted body was found in the Tallahatchie River near the Delta community of Money, Miss., on Aug. 31, 1955.   (AP Photo/File)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 11 comments
Shannonals
Jul 19, 2009 5:35 AM CDT
No, seriously Verminator, reflect to the entire world how truly racist you are
Snarfeh
Jul 11, 2009 4:36 AM CDT
armywife, I remember that well. I was living in GA at the time and it was a very horrifying, gut-wrenching revelation even for those of us not impacted directly. I am sorry to hear your family was victimized in that situation.
ezrider
Jul 11, 2009 2:45 AM CDT
i meant less of an issue
US

 
Chicago • crime • murder • grave robbing • Illinois • Mississippi • civil rights • excavation • civil rights movement • Emmett Till • Burr Oak Cemetery

 
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