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MIAMI – The cousin of Emmett Till is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi, focusing her campaign on hate crimes and racial justice that tied together in the 14-year-old murder in 1955.

Priscilla Williams-Till, a civil rights activist and Democrat, has launched a bid to challenge Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in next year’s midterm election for November 3, 2026.

But she first must get past the primaries schedule for March 10, 2025.

She vows to push legislation targeting systemic injustice, including federal investigations into discriminatory policing and zoning laws.

Williams-Till is the founder of the Emmett Till Justice for Families Foundation.

Her cousin’s brutal murder remains of one of darkest chapters in the annals of American history, racial injustice and the Civil Rights Movement.

According to the FBI, around August 28, 1955, Emmett Till was kidnapped, beaten and shot in the head and thrown into the Tallahatchie River.

Several white men lynched Emmett Till in the town of Money after Carolyn Bryant, a white woman, accused him of whistling at her.

Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam were accused of the murder and both were acquitted by an all male jury.