Drive through the Mississippi Delta today, and you’ll find it dotted with memorials to major figures and events from the civil rights movement. Most chilling, perhaps, are those recalling the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a tragedy of hate and injustice that became a milestone in the fight for racial equality.

It would be nice to view those signs and monuments as evidence of a region coming to terms with a troubled past. But in a discussion of his new book Remembering Emmett Till, the University of Kansas’ Dave Tell divulges a more conflicted backstory. Turns out there’s money to be made in struggling communities from luring civil rights tourists. Politics play a role. And persistent vandalism of the memorials betrays enduring racism.

Tell is a professor of communication studies at KU and principal investigator for the Emmett Till Memory Project.