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*A sign marking a highway honoring Emmett Till has been vandalized in what authorities have called an act of racism.
Vandals painted “KKK” on a sign along the Emmett Till Memorial Highway in Greenwood, Mississippi, a stretch of U.S. 49 that was dedicated to the 14-year-old black teen killed in August 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
"Our city is growing, working to bring racial harmony ... and then we have some jackass come in and deface the sign," Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, who also is president of the city council, told The Associated Press Sunday.
"Undoubtedly it's somebody in that frame of mind - a black and white thing," Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks said, adding an investigation was underway.
"There's no way of knowing unless somebody say something," Banks said, adding the vandals who spray-painted the Ku Klux Klan reference over the weekend likely were "out at night doing what they shouldn't be doing."
Jordan said the sign would be replaced by the state Division of Highways. "But we don't have time for this foolishness," Jordan added. "There's an element that's still stumbling to the future backward. ... It doesn't frighten anybody these days. It certainly doesn't frighten African-Americans in this town."
The vandals face a $1,000 fine if they are caught and convicted, Banks said.