Event for 1955 case that keyed rights era

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The 60th anniversary of the race-related murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi will be the topic of an event at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Tyler Mahoning Valley History Center, 325 W. Federal St., downtown.

Simeon Wright, cousin of Emmett Till, and Dale Killinger, the FBI agent who reopened the Till case in 2004, will be on hand to discuss the events that led to the kidnapping and murder of Till, as well as the motivation behind the reopening of the case.

Wright will describe the events of the night in August 1955 when 14-year-old Till, who had traveled from Chicago to Mississippi to visit relatives, was kidnapped from his uncle’s home in the middle of the night and murdered for wolf whistling at a white woman.

Killinger will share the evidence in the case the FBI examined almost 40 years later.

The Emmett Till Traveling Exhibit from Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., also will be on display. It includes pictures from the trial of the two men accused of murdering Till.

For information, contact Penny Wells, director of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, at pennywwells@sbcglobal.net or 330-207-4467.

Thursday’s event is sponsored by the Sojourn group and the Mahoning Valley Historical Society.