Volume V Special Issue IV October 2025

Name of Author : Sherlin Johnson, Dr. S. Prabahar

Title of the paper : Beyond the Bullet Holes: Commemoration of Emmett Till in Digital Space

Abstract: The Emmett Till Memory Project is a digital humanities initiative that uses technology to preserve and share the history of Emmett Tills murder and its impact, particularly in the context of ongoing vandalism of physical memorials. The present paper tries to understand how vandalism of the Emmett Till memorials is a stark reminder that racism still exists in the United States of America. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines vandalism as willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property. Sandwiched between the Brown v. Board of Education in May 1954 and the beginning of the Montgomery Bus boycott in December 1955, Emmett Tills murder is one of the first civil rights events that gained the attention of the World towards Mississippi. On 28th August 1955, Emmett Louis Till, a fourteen year old Chicago teenager, was abducted and brutally killed by two white men for allegedly wolf whistling at a white lady in a Store in the Delta town of Money, Mississippi. The acquittal of the two murderers by the grand jury drew the attention of the National and International media to Mississippi, igniting the modern day civil rights movement in the United States of America. Digitalization of Emmett Tills memorial sites protects the memory of Emmett Till from the scourge of vandals in Mississippi, the most racist state in America. In 2019, Dave Tell of the University of Kansas, Patrick Weeks of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, David Houck, Benjamin Saulsberry, and Pablo Correa launched the Emmett Till Memory Project, a mobile application and website designed to respond to acts of vandalism by creating digital memorials that could not be defaced. The bullet riddled markers visibly announce white supremacy and foreshadow the violence in the Deep South of the United States in the Contemporary period.

Keywords : Vandalism, Commemoration, Emmett Till, Civil Rights Movement, Digital Space.

DOI :

Page Number : 102-107