THE FAMILY of Emmett Till has called for murder charges against the woman responsible for his horrific lynching.
Relatives of the murdered black 14-year-old boy are appealing to Mississippi’s top prosecutor to pursue criminal charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham, a white woman who accused the boy of whistling at her and touching her.
As a result, the teenager was abducted, tortured and shot in the head in 1955.
His body was then thrown into the Tallahatchie River and discovered three days later.
Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, decided to have an open-casket funeral showing her son’s mutilated body and at the time the distressing images sent shockwaves around the world and were published in Black media outlets, Jet and The Chicago Defender.
Till’s cousin, Deborah Watts, is a co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation. She said the organisation has collected more than 250,000 signatures demanding murder charges against Ms Donham, who is still alive.
“We will bear witness to the hatred that has been embedded in our DNA since the slave ships arrived,” Ms Watts said on Friday, according to the Clarion-Ledger.
“We made a promise to [his mother] that we would persist and that’s why we’re here today.”
Ms Donham claimed the 14-year-old boy grabbed her and made sexual advances as she was working in a store. Donham’s husband at the time, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother JW Milam, who were both white, were charged with Till’s murder.
But were both later acquitted by an all-white jury.
Both men have since died and Ms Donham is one of the last-living witnesses to the brutal killing.
According to NBC News, both men told a magazine journalist they committed the murder and were able to offer a detailed account of the brutal killing.
The investigation into the case was reopened in 2018, by the Justice Department, following the publication of a book The Blood of Emmett Till, by Timothy B. Tyson in 2017.
In the book, Mr Tyson claimed that Ms Donham, told him in a 2008 interview that parts of her testimony were not true.
“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she was alleged to have told the author, when she was describing how she felt about Till’s mother.
But during the federal investigation, Ms Donham denied that she ever lied in her testimony. Mr Tyson has said he wasn’t recording Ms Donham when she made the confession, but he made detailed notes and stands by his reporting.
However, in December, the Justice Department said they did not have enough evidence to support the author’s claim that Ms Donham had lied and decided to end their investigation.
Last week, the Senate passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act of 2022 by unanimous votes, which will make lynching a federal hate crime.
The bill will now head to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
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13 Comments
hmmmmmmm………🤔
There was no such thing as civil rights in 1955. Non white people were at the mercy of white society. We recognize that today. We condemn our past as a country, & in light of that, we must also condemn people guilty of crimes committed in those dark times.
I feel although we as a nation think those dark times have passed that’s not true they happen everyday I have a son of Native American and Hispanic descent that has been pulled over and treated like a criminal by pulling him out because he looked suspicious because he’s driving a nice car !! That’s BS when we are still having to teach Our sons not to speak their truth !!! I’m grateful my son speaks his truth we should all be able to speak our truth if not then we’re no better off today than they were in 1955 just see that when protesters were being arrested why were the white people that committed vandalism of the capital not thrown in jail!!! We all need to stand United and see we all were created by God and no race is superior to another !!!!
Justice needs to be served for this horrible crime. Someone needs to pay.
This Caucasian woman used the Caucasian people’s violent hatred of African-heritage Americans to attract a little attention to herself. Ms. Carolyn Bryant Donham’s accusation against 14-year-old Emmit Till was violently catastrophic and for this Ms Donham should carefully examine her role in the violent events.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s judgment that African-heritage people are only two-thirds humans contributed to the U.S. lynching surge of African-heritage men; women and children.
The U.S. Congress’s failure to outlaw lynching inspired the lynching of African-heritage people.
The failure of the Clergy; academics, reporters; editors, and others to speak against the violence and lynching of African-heritage people, also contributed to the culture of lynching African-heritage people. All these U.S. institutions should consider their contribution to lynching.
Ms. Carolyn Bryant Donham’s accusation caused the lynching of Master Emmitt Till, and for this, she should at least apologize if she is truly repentant.
I agree with his family she needs to be brought to justice she is responsible for his death
The very sight of this women, then or now, makes me literally sick to my stomach. I hope she has a special space in hell waiting for her.
F*** THAT WOMAN
Sad to say but there are millions of those smug-faced racist white women around today. This particular woman deserves a specially nasty place in Hell.
Hang that old bitch
That is a shame before God she needs to repent and apologize to the whole country and than be punished for lying
This is soooo sad. This woman should have been charged. Justice is eventually served because she will have to face her karma. I know that is not good enough for this young man’s family. There aren’t words to convey the message of sorrow I feel in my heart for Emmett. Horrible, scary and unforgiveable.
I am a 65 year old Black woman, and only learned about Emmett Till through a mini series last year. I cried throughout the movie. It took a lot of courage for Mamie to pursue justice, even though it never came. Using an open casket is a true testimony of the times, that can’t be erased. Emmett & Mamie will always hold a place in history. God bless them.