Documents discovered by Burr Oak Cemetery workers showed the former manager of the graveyard was raising funds for a museum in honor of Emmett Till. But was it just another attempt at grabbing cash? more ›

Exactly two years ago, radar showed that the folks running the historic Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip were reusing graves by digging up bodies and dumping them elsewhere. more ›

Some good news coming out of the horrors of the Burr Oak Cemetery story. The casket of civil rights figure Emmett Till, discovered discarded in a shed at the cemetery earlier this summer, will be getting an official home in a museum: the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The announcement is expected tomorrow before a ceremony marking the 54th anniversary of Till's death. [Tribune] more ›

Shock and disgust remain two days after the horrific discovery at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip that employees at the historic African-American cemetery had dug up several hundred bodies for the purposes of reselling the plots. The disinterred remains were then dumped in a field at the rear of the cemetery. According to the Sun-Times' Mary Mitchell, officials also discovered the casket of Emmett Till, whose murder became a rallying point of the Civil Rights movement, had been moved. more ›

A strange, horrible story from Alsip regarding the historic African-American Burr Oak Cemetery. It seems the manager and several grave-diggers dug up over 100 almost 300 bodies for the purposes of re-selling the graves. Authorities found piles of bones where the bodies had been dumped after being dug up. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said, "What we found was beyond startling and revolting...All of us who were working on this for the last week were pretty distraught. You start with the premise of your own loved ones and how they are cared for after they are buried, but there is also a true significance to this particular cemetery." Among the historic figures buried at the cemetery are Emmett Till, jazz/blues legend Dinah Washington and heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles. Dart said authorities are working to identify the remains that were removed, but said, "We cannot give people definitive answers at this point." [Tribune, Sun-Times] more ›