The Gun Linked to Emmett Till's Murder Is Now on Display at a Museum in Mississippi

The weapon is thought to have belonged to J.W. Milam, one of the two men who kidnapped, tortured and killed the Black teenager for whistling at a white woman in a grocery store in 1955

Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent

August 29, 2025

On August 28, the 70th anniversary of Till’s murder, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson unveiled an Ithaca .45 caliber pistol and its holster. Museum officials say the weapon belonged to J.W. Milam, one of the men who killed the Black 14-year-old for whistling at a white woman in a grocery store.

The gun, which is now part of a permanent exhibition about Till’s lynching, is “a very hard thing to see,” says Nan Prince, director of collections for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the state agency that operates the museum.

“This weapon has affected me more so than any other artifact that I’ve encountered in my 30-year museum career,” Prince tells Mississippi Today’s Simeon Gates.

How did the gun end up at the museum? And where has it been for the past 70 years? Many of these details have not been made public. However, according to the New York Times’ Emily Cochrane and Audra D. S. Burch, the story starts around 2004, when filmmaker Keith Beauchamp first learned of the gun’s whereabouts. Beauchamp, who was working on a documentary about Till, shared what he knew about the gun with the FBI.

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Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, at home in Chicago Chicago Tribune file photo / Tribune News Service via Getty Images

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-gun-linked-to-emmett-tills-murder-is-now-on-display-at-a-museum-in-mississippi-180987266/