Army Leaks Louis Till's Execution Record to Discredit Emmett Till's Murder Outrage

After Emmett Till's murder and the acquittal of his killers, Mississippi Senator James Eastland and the White Citizens Council obtain Louis Till's confidential military records — his father, executed by the U.S. Army in Italy in 1945 for murder and rape — and leak them to the press to suggest Emmett inherited criminal tendencies. The U.S. Army cooperates in releasing normally confidential records. The smearing of a dead soldier's record to justify his son's murder illustrates government complicity in white supremacist propaganda.