Woman whose accusation led to lynching of Emmett Till dies

The woman at the centre of one of the most notorious episodes in US racial history, the lynching of black teenager Emmett Till, has died.

Carolyn Bryant Donham, 88, died in a hospice in Louisiana on Tuesday.

Her accusation that the 14-year-old Mr Till had whistled at her caused his death at the hands of two white men, but also became a catalyst for the civil rights movement.

In August 1955, Mr Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi. Ms Donham, then 21 and known as Carolyn Bryant, accused him of making improper advances on her at the store she worked at in the small community of Money.

One of Mr Till’s cousins, Reverend Wheeler Parker, said that the boy whistled at the woman, an act that was contrary to the racist social codes of the era in the Deep South.

It is believed that Mr Till was identified to Ms Donham’s then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother JW Milam, who abducted the teenager several nights after the incident.

They beat and mutilated Mr Till before shooting him in the head and leaving his body in the Tallahatchie river. It was discovered swollen and bloated three days later, and was returned to his mother Mamie Till Bradley in Chicago.

Mr Till’s funeral captured international attention when Mrs Bradley insisted that her son be buried in an open casket, saying: “There was just no way I could describe what was in that box. No way. And I just wanted the world to see.”

Pictures of the body shocked America, and pressure was brought to bear on the state of Mississippi to bring Mr Till’s murderers to justice. Bryant and Milam were arrested and tried for the killing, but an all-white jury acquitted the two white men.

In an unpublished memoir titled I am More Than A Wolf Whistle, which was obtained by the Associated Press (AP) in 2022, Ms Donham said she was unaware of what would happen to the teenager.

Historian Timothy Tyson said he obtained a copy from Ms Donham while interviewing her in 2008, before passing it on to the AP.

Tyson said on Thursday that her precise role in the killing of Till remains murky, but it’s clear she was involved.

“It has comforted America to see this as merely a story of monsters, her among them,” Tyson said. “What this narrative keeps us from seeing is the monstrous social order that cared nothing for the life of Emmett Till nor thousands more like him.

“Neither the federal government nor the government of Mississippi did anything to prevent or punish this murder.

“Condemning what Donham did is easier than confronting what America was – and is.”

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