The Florida State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives recently received rare legal documents from a landmark civil rights case.
On Monday, the school announced it had acquired historical records from the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi — the place where J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were tried for the abduction and murder of Emmett Till in 1955.
Milam and Bryant were tried less than four weeks after Till’s death. An all-white and male jury acquitted them both. They both later confessed to the crime to a magazine journalist. Till’s death fueled the growing momentum behind the Civil Rights Movement…