Building tied to Emmett Till killing to be restored

MONEY, Miss.— The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is providing $152,000 to restore a gas station in Money as part of the story of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago who was lynched for whistling at a white woman in 1955.

The station will be restored as part of the Mississippi Civil Rights Historical Program, The Greenwood Commonwealth (http://bit.ly/qlcYAb) reported Sunday.

Ben Roy's Service Station stands next to what used to be Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, owned by beauty pageant winner Carolyn Bryant — the woman Till is said to have whistled at — and her husband, Roy.

Several nights afterward, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, killed and mutilated Till. An all-white jury acquitted them of murder, but they later confessed to the crime in an article in Look Magazine.

Architect Dale Riser says the owners still have the 1950s gas pumps, which will be reinstalled.

"The idea is it would become an exhibit area," Riser said.

The grant "will restore the interior, exterior and ground of Ben Roy's Service Station ... for use as a 1950s time period exhibition," said Mary A. Morgan, a relative of the Tribble family, which owns the station and store building.

Riser said, "The next phase would be to renovate the shell of Bryant's Grocery."

The service station is in much better shape than the grocery, he said.

The first Mississippi Freedom Trail historical marker, about Till's murder, stands between the buildings. It was dedicated in May, the month the grant application was submitted.

The department also approved $210,000 to restore the Tallahatchie Second District courtroom in Sumner where Bryant and Milam were tried, and an equal amount for the Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker Program, which commemorates the state's civil rights heritage.

Morgan said the Ben Roy's restoration project "will support heritage tourism in Greenwood, Leflore County and the surrounding areas."