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Simeon Wright, left, with his father, Moses Wright, shortly after the murder of his cousin Emmett Till in 1955.
Associated Press; thumbnail, M. Spencer Green/Associated Press, 2009
Simeon Wright
Died on September 4, 2017 at age 74
As a 12-year-old in the Mississippi Delta in 1955, Mr. Wright was with his cousin Emmett Till when Emmett had a fateful encounter with the young wife of a white grocery store owner, an encounter that would lead to Emmett’s abduction - also witnessed by Mr. Wright - by two white men in a racial murder case that would shake the nation and galvanize the civil rights movement.
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.