Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who accused teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, has passed away at the age of 88 in hospice care in Louisiana. Her death report was filed on Thursday in Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office in Louisiana.
Till’s brutal kidnapping and killing became a significant event for the civil rights movement. His mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago after his brutalized body was pulled from a river in Mississippi. Jet magazine published photos of Till’s body.
The incident happened in August 1955 when Till, 14 years old, traveled from Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi. Carolyn Bryant, who was then 21 years old and married to Roy Bryant, accused him of making improper advances at a grocery store where she worked in the small community of money.
Evidence indicates that Bryant’s then-husband and his half-brother J.W. Milam, who killed the teenager, were informed of the incident by a woman. An all-white jury acquitted the two white men in the killing, but they later confessed to Look magazine.
In 2008, historian and author Timothy Tyson interviewed Carolyn Bryant, who had changed her name after the incident, and obtained an unpublished memoir from her.
The manuscript was titled “I am More Than A Wolf Whistle,” and it was first reported by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. In the manuscript, Bryant claimed she was unaware of what would happen to Till. However, Tyson stated that Bryant’s precise role in the killing of Till remains unclear but it is evident that she was involved.
Earlier this year, Till’s cousin, Priscilla Sterling, filed a federal lawsuit against the current Leflore County Sheriff, Ricky Banks, seeking to compel him to serve the 1955 warrant on Bryant, which was never served.
The office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said there was no new evidence to pursue a criminal case against Bryant. In August, a Leflore County grand jury declined to indict her.
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