w/picCAPTION: Mary Rogers, principal of the former James McCosh Elementary School, center, is presented with a plaque from Deborah Watts, left, Annabelle Wright, second left, Simeon Wright, second right, and Ollie Gordon during ceremonies marking the rededication of the school as the Emmett Louis Till Math & Science Academy last Friday in Chicago. The school was renamed to honor the 14-year-old former McCosh student whose murder helped galvanize the civil rights movement. Watts and Gordon are cousins of Till. AP Photo/M. Spencer Green. CHICAGO (AP) – A city elementary school has been renamed for a former 14-year-old student whose brutal slaying helped galvanize the civil rights movement. James McCosh Elementary was rededicated Friday as the Emmett Till Math & Science Academy. Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was tortured and killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman in 1955. Current Chicago Public Schools officials were joined at Friday’s ceremonies by relatives of Till and his former instructors. Two of Till’s cousins, Deborah Watts and Ollie Gordon, helped present to principal Mary Rogers a plaque marking the rededication. A bulletin board honoring the teen and recounting his story in the works of current students was featured on the school’s first floor. Following Till’s death, Mamie Till-Mobley had her son’s body returned to Chicago for an open-casket funeral. Thousands turned out for the service and a photograph of Till’s disfigured face in Jet Magazine let the world see what was happening in the South. An all-white jury acquitted two white men in the killing who later admitted in a magazine story to kidnapping and lynching Till, allegedly for whistling at the wife of one of the men. The men have since died. The U.S. Justice Department reopened the case in 2004, prompted in part by a documentary that found errors in the original investigation and concluded that several people, some still living, were involved in Till’s death. FBI officials in Mississippi said last week that a long-awaited report into Till’s killing could be in the hands of state prosecutors within the next month.
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