A grand jury in Mississippi has declined to indict the white woman whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago, despite revelations about an unserved arrest warrant & a newly revealed memoir by the woman.
After hearing more than 7 hours of testimony from investigators & witnesses, a Leflore County grand jury last week determined there was insufficient evidence to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham on charges of kidnapping & manslaughter.
It is now increasingly unlikely that Donham, who is now in her 80s, will ever be prosecuted for her role in the events that led to Till’s lynching.
A group searching the basement of the Leflore County Courthouse in June discovered the unserved arrest warrant charging Donham, then-husband Roy Bryant & brother-in-law J.W. Milam in Till’s abduction in 1955. While the men were arrested & acquitted on murder charges in Till’s subsequent slaying, Donham, 21 at the time & 87 now, was never taken into custody.
In an unpublished memoir obtained last month by The Associated Press, Donham said she was unaware of what would happen to the 14-year-old Till, who lived in Chicago & was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was abducted, killed & tossed in a river. She accused him of making lewd comments & grabbing her while she worked alone at a family store in Money, Mississippi.
Till’s battered, disfigured body was found days later in a river, where it was weighted down with a heavy metal fan. The decision by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, to open Till’s casket for his funeral in Chicago demonstrated the horror of what had happened & added fuel to the civil rights movement.
#EmmettTill #EmmettTilldeath #EmmettTillmurder #ripEmmettTill #lynched #lynching #murder #homicide #misssissippi #roybryant #jwmilan #abduction #kidnapped #kidnapping #14yearold #child #kid #tortured #arrestwarrant #mamietillmobley #carolynbryant #grandjury #kukluxklan #racists #racism #whitewoman #whitemen #blackboy #africanamericanboy #teenager
Source: AP
Follow Me
}
Comments