Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • The full PUMP Act is now in effect. Here’s what it does for lactating parents.

        Chabeli Carrazana · April 28
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: How to ease the ‘loneliness epidemic’ and social isolation among older adults

        Sara Luterman · April 24
      • The 19th Explains: Who will be most impacted by Medicaid changes — and when

        Rebekah Barber · March 28
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Ranked-choice voting is gaining momentum. So are efforts to stop it.

        Barbara Rodriguez · April 24
      • Connecticut voters approved early voting. Here’s how their new secretary of state wants to make it happen.

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 13
      • Women lawmakers in Minnesota are in the vanguard of the democracy movement

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 3

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Election 2024
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Military
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Mamie Till looks at the brutalized body of her son, Emmett Till. She is comforted by Gene Mobley, whom she would later marry.
Mamie Till looks at the brutalized body of her son, Emmett Till. She is comforted by Gene Mobley, whom she would later marry. (David Jackson)

Justice

Woman at center of Emmett Till killing has died

Some people hoped that Carolyn Bryant Donham would be prosecuted. With her death, 'justice was never done.'

Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today

Published

2023-04-27 13:06
1:06
April 27, 2023
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The White woman at the center of the Emmett Till saga, Carolyn Bryant Donham, has died.

Megan LeBoeuf, chief investigator for the Calcasieu Parish coroner’s office, confirmed Donham’s death. The 88-year-old was suffering from cancer and was receiving end-of-life hospice care.

Devery Anderson, the author of “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement,” said Donham’s death marks the end of a chapter.

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Some people “have been clinging to hope that she could be prosecuted. She was the last remaining person who had any involvement,” he said. “Now that can’t happen.”

For many, “it’s going to be a wound, because justice was never done,” he said. “Some others were clinging to hope she might still talk or tell the truth. … Now it’s over.”

Till’s cousin, Wheeler Parker, said he and his family send their sympathies to the Donham family. “We don’t have any ill will or animosity toward her,” he said.

He said Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, forgave her son’s killers.

In a speech she made shortly before her 2003 death that God told her not to hate her son’s killers. “I am glad he took hatred out of my heart,” she said.

The killers thought they would be heroes, but became nobodies who lived miserable lives, she said. “There’s one sentence that you cannot escape, and that is when you go before the judgment seat of God. He will give the verdict.”

In August 1955, Till had barely turned 14 when he visited his Mississippi relatives from Chicago, only to be beaten and shot to death after he reportedly wolf-whistled at Donham at a store in Money.

His mother decided to leave the casket open to “let the world see what they did to my boy.” More than 50,000 attended the funeral, and the photograph of his brutalized body appeared in Jet and other publications around the world.

An all-White jury acquitted Donham’s then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.W. Milam, only for them to confess later to Look magazine they had indeed beaten and killed Till.

A triptych of John W. Milam, Roy Bryant, and Carol Bryant.
John W. Milam, 35 (left), his half-brother Roy Bryant, 24 (center) went on trial in Sumner, Mississippi in September 1955 for the murder of 14-year-old Emmett L.Till, who Bryant’s wife Carolyn Bryant (right) accused of whistling at her. (AP)

The injustice made international headlines and fueled the civil rights movement. Four days after Rosa Parks heard a talk about Till, she boarded a city bus in Montgomery and refused to give up her seat. She was later quoted as saying she thought about Till the whole time.

Donham had long insisted on her innocence in Till’s murder, repeating that assertion in her unpublished memoir, “I Am More Than a Wolf Whistle,” but civil rights activists and others have called for her prosecution, accusing her of identifying Till to the killers.

After an intensive FBI investigation, a majority-Black Mississippi grand jury declined to indict her in 2007. Last year, another grand jury voted against indicting her.

The memoir remains sealed in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until 2036. But through a source, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, now part of Mississippi Today, has obtained a copy of that single-spaced, 109-page memoir, which contradicts her original statement to her husband’s defense lawyer, Sidney Carlton.

In that original statement, Donham said when Bryant brought Till to her, he “was scared but hadn’t been harmed. He didn’t say anything. Roy asked if that was the same one, and I told him it was not the one who had insulted me.”

That is far different from her memoir, which portrays Till as fearless and her as frightened. After she denied Till was the one at the store, she claimed he “flashed me a strange smile and said, ‘Yes, it was me,’ or something to that effect. … He didn’t act … scared in the least.”

Davis Houck, co-author of “Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press,” said Donham’s claim sounds like it was ripped from William Bradford Huie’s lie-filled Look article, which depicted Till as fearless to the end.

“The idea that Till would essentially out himself in front of his kidnappers and would-be killers,” he said, “is beyond absurd.”

Dale Killinger, who as an FBI agent investigated the Till case, said Donham’s claim in her memoir contradicts what she told him in 2005 — that Till said nothing when his kidnappers brought him to her.

During his investigation, he took the statements of two Black men. The first had been confronted by Bryant, who accused him of insulting Donham. She intervened and said it wasn’t him, and Bryant let him go.

  • More from The 19th
    Three Black women with their back facing the camera and their unique hairstyles featured.
  • Freaknik united thousands of Black college students, but it posed risks for Black women
  • The voices of NPR: How four women of color see their roles as hosts
  • Kawaski Trawick was killed by an NYPD officer. Four years later, his mother hopes a hearing holds someone accountable.

The second man was walking home from Money after buying molasses for his mother, only to be picked up by Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam. The man quoted Donham as saying, “That’s not the n—–! That’s not the one.”

The man said he was tossed from the truck and lost his front teeth when he hit the ground.

Those statements dovetail with the testimony of Till’s uncle, Moses Wright, who said Milam told him, “If this is not the right boy, then we are going to bring him back. If it is not the right boy, we are going to bring him back and put him in the bed.”

As Milam and Bryant left, Wright said they asked someone in the vehicle if this was the boy and that a voice replied, “Yes.”

“Was that a man’s voice or a lady’s voice you heard?” the prosecutor asked.

“It seemed like it was a lighter voice than a man’s,” replied Wright, who later told his son, Simeon, it was a woman’s voice.

Killinger said he believes that Donham escaped justice. 

“She should have faced a jury on manslaughter charges,” he said. “Under Mississippi law, if you did or said something, knowing that someone might be harmed, and your statements or actions led to them dying, you would be subject to manslaughter charges.”

Informed of Donham’s death, Keith Beauchamp, whose documentary on Till played a role in the FBI’s reopening of the case in 2004, said, “Damn, damn, damn.”

Since 1955, law enforcement and local officials have allowed Donham to evade justice “without answering to her participation in the kidnapping that led to the lynching of Emmett Louis Till,” he said. “The good old American judicial system has failed us yet again. Now Carolyn Bryant Donham will face her maker.”

Houck said Donham’s passing closes a long chapter that began in the early 2000s to prosecute those involved in the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till.

“Despite efforts from the Department of Justice, the FBI, local prosecutors in Mississippi and private citizens,” he said, “she was never arrested or indicted for her role in one of the 20th century’s most infamous lynchings, this despite the fact that Leflore County Sheriff George Smith had issued a warrant for her arrest days after Till had gone missing from his great aunt and uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi.”

In her memoir, Donham wrote that she did not wish Till any harm and that those responsible for his murder should have been held accountable. 

“His death was tragic and uncalled for beyond all doubt,” she wrote. “For that, I am truly sorry. If it had been within my power to change his fate, I would have done so.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

Up Next

Education

Freaknik united thousands of Black college students, but it posed risks for Black women

Forty years after the first Freaknik, the Atlanta spring break event is still generating buzz thanks to a planned Hulu documentary. 

Read the Story

Three Black women with their back facing the camera and their unique hairstyles featured.

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram