I first visited Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market near the hamlet of Money in Leflore county Mississippi in 2009 with my friend Mark Bonta, who was a professor at the local Delta State University in nearby Cleveland at the time.

Before that visit I’d not heard much of the brutal murder of Emmett Till and the terrible times that prevailed in Mississippi before and since but I know a lot more now, though I’ll readily admit to having plenty left to learn.

Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, 2009

When Mark and I visited the two-storey brick frame of Bryant’s Grocery was still standing, albeit derelict, unloved and unwanted.

There was no memorial marker out front and nothing to mark the site as terrible, remarkable or significant.

But memories persist even as the immutable forces of nature take back to itself the bricks, mortar and wood that once formed a whole.

Exterior of Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, July 2026

All that remained of Bryant’s Grocery when I visited last month was a messy pile of vines and scrub with only the sign asserting ownership and the Mississippi Freedom Trail marker indicating the site was of any significance.

The deep Delta topsoil has all but reclaimed what remains of Bryant’s Grocery.

The barn where Emmett Till was tortured, Photo: Emmett Till Interpretive Center

Following the events outlined in the marker above, in the early hours of 28 August 1955 Emmett Till—who’d travelled down from Chicago a few days earlier—was abducted from his great-uncle’s home and taken to a barn at Drew in Bolivar county where he was tortured and killed.

The historical marker near the Tallahatchie River where Emmett Till’s body was found. Photo: Emmett Till Interpretive Center

Emmett Till’s body was dumped into the Tallahatchie River and his mutilated corpse was found by fishermen days later, bound to a cotton-gin fan.

As the New York Times reported in 2018, this was one of eight signs that had been erected—and destroyed—at the Tallahatchie River site.

But a year later, vandals tore down the sign on the riverbed. It was replaced. But then bullets were fired into that marker — more than 100 rounds over several years. A new sign was installed in June. Thirty-five days later, on July 26, it was shot up again.

Mississippi historic marker outside of the Tallahatchie County Courthouse, Sumner MS.

A few miles north-east of Drew is the small town of Sumner, where the trial of the men charged with Emmett Till’s murder took place in the Tallahatchie County Courthouse, a Richardson romanesque building across the street from the Emmett Till Interpretive Centre.

The Courthouse has now been preserved as a museum, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 and in 2023 was designated as part of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument.

Clinton Melton memorial marker, Glendora, MS.

These markers at Glendora, a small town on the border of Tallahatchie and Leflore counties, provide just a glimpse of the spread and effect of the reign of terror throughout the Delta following Emmett Till’s murder.

King’s Place memorial marker, Glendora, MS.

If you’re travelling to the United States I can heartily recommend a trip to Mississippi and other parts of the south—there is no end of interesting stuff to see and do—I’ll post my thoughts soon on some of the musical and cultural delights that I enjoyed during my visit this past July.

For further reading and information about the life and tragic death of Emmett Till the following make up a good start:

  • The Emmett Till Memory Project app: this is a complete guide to the legacy of Till’s murder and takes users to the most important sites in the Mississippi Delta and beyond;
  • The Mississippi Department of Archives and History;
  • The Mississippi Freedom Trail: In and around Jackson, the Mississippi state capital there are historic markers commemorating the home of Medgar Evers, the Greyhound Bus Station, Mississippi State Capitol, Council of Federated Organizations Civil Rights Education Center, Tougaloo College, Jackson State University and the site of the 1963 sit-in at Woolworth’s. There are a number of historic markers in northern Mississippi and the Delta;
  • Wright Thompson’s The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi. I can heartily recommend this magisterial book that has been described as “the most brutal, layered and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi;” and
  • The Emmett Till Interpretive Center: The ETIC “preserves the story and sacred sites of Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley. Through narrative, education, and memorialization, we invite people everywhere to confront the realities of 1955 and pursue reconciliation and repair—sparking a future rooted in truth, dignity, and democratic values.“