The federal government recently released new records on the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till.
Released on Friday by the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, the records were made public from the possession of the National Archives and were released in compliance with the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018.
In the case files, the reactions of the FBI, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Justice Department are all detailed. Records include correspondences, forms, letters, magazine clippings, messages, newsletters, postcards, reports, telegrams and teletypes from the White House, the NAACP and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
They show that, while the federal government failed to conduct an official investigation as they believed it fell under the jurisdiction of the State of Mississippi, they did collect information on the murder of Till.
“Our thoughts are with the Till family,” said the National Archives in a news release published alongside the records.
The newest records come amidst the marking of 70 years since Till’s death. On Aug. 28, the 14-year-old was kidnapped from the home of his great-uncle by Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam on account of false accusations.
Bryant’s wife, Carolyn, accused Till of making sexual advances towards her at her family’s grocery store. In a 2007 interview with author Timothy Tyson, decades after her testimony, Carolyn retracted her statements, admitting that she had lied and fabricated the interaction that killed Till.
Many new records –now digitized– were released regarding the tragic murder of Emmett Till. They are available here: https://t.co/aj2F9qX0JL. This release is in response to the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018.
— U.S. National Archives (@USNatArchives) August 22, 2025
For three days, the 14-year-old was tortured and beaten in a barn before they gouged out his eyes and shot him in the head. Bryant and Milam proceeded to throw Till’s body into the Tallahatchie River with a 75-pound fan and barbed wire wrapped around his body.
While they were charged for their crimes, the murderers were acquitted by an all-white-male jury.
Till’s death galvanized the Civil Rights Movement after his mother, Mamie Till, insisted on an open-casket funeral for the world to see what racism in the U.S. had done to her son. Thousands attended the funeral. Taken at the funeral, an image of Mamie gazing at her child’s body became highly publicized, making its way into Jet Magazine.
In the decades since 1955, Till’s death has continued to spur many changes. Along with a national monument recognizing his story, former President Joe Biden signed into law the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, a federal law that defines lynching as a hate crime.
The Caucus of African American Leaders also unveiled an alert system named after Till. Known as the Emmett Till Alerts System, it notifies Black leaders about racist incidents and hate crimes in Maryland.
