The Greene County Democrat

Tag: Carolyn Bryant Donham

  • Newswire : President Biden signs proclamation establishing National Monument Honoring Emmett Till

    Emmett and his mother Mamie Till

    By Stacy M. Brown
 NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    President Joe Biden signed a proclamation on Tuesday, July 25, establishing a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black teenager whose tragic lynching in 1955 ignited a nationwide outcry against racial injustice and discrimination.
Named the “Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument,” the historic memorial will span three sites in Illinois and Mississippi, symbolizing locations that played a central role in Till’s heartbreaking story.
“The new monument will protect places that tell the story of Emmett Till’s too-short life and racially motivated murder, the unjust acquittal of his murderers, and the activism of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who courageously brought the world’s attention to the brutal injustices and racism of the time, catalyzing the civil rights movement,” White House officials explained.
The three sites that will be part of the monument are the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, where Till’s mother held an open-casket funeral to display her son’s brutalized body; Graball Landing in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, believed to be the location where Till’s body was retrieved from the Tallahatchie River; and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Till’s murderers were acquitted.
Till’s tragic story unfolded in August 1955 while visiting relatives in Mississippi.
Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, two white men, allegedly kidnapped, brutally beat, and lynched him for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
The men’s trial, which occurred before an all-white jury, ended in their acquittal, sparking outrage and disbelief nationwide.
However, in a later interview with Look Magazine, Bryant and Milam admitted their responsibility for Till’s heinous murder, revealing the justice system’s deeply flawed and biased nature during that era.
As Till’s story continued to gain national attention, the brave actions of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, became a driving force behind the Civil Rights Movement.
She insisted that her son’s casket remain open during the funeral, allowing the world to witness the brutality of racial violence and the stark realities of America’s rampant racism.
Photographs of Till’s battered and mutilated body were published in Jet Magazine, impacting the collective consciousness, and mobilizing people across the nation to fight against racial injustice.
Earlier this year, Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose false accusation against Till triggered the events leading to his lynching, died at the age of 88.
Donham passed away in Westlake, Louisiana, while receiving hospice care, according to a death record from the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office.
President Biden’s decision to establish the national monument is seen as crucial to acknowledging and preserving the painful history of racial violence in the United States.
By commemorating Emmett Till’s life and the legacy of his courageous mother, the monument will serve as a reminder of the immense sacrifices made by those who fought for civil rights, and it will stand as a beacon of hope and a call to action against ongoing injustices.
Administration officials said the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument will symbolize resilience, progress, and the enduring fight for a more equitable society.

  • Newswire : Carolyn Bryant Donham, Emmett Till’s false accuser, dies at 88

    Emmett Till and Carolyn B. Donham

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    The white woman who testified that a Black teenager named Emmett Till had made inappropriate approaches toward her, which led to his lynching and murder in Mississippi in 1955, has died.
According to a coroner’s report, Carolyn Bryant Donham, 88, died while receiving hospice care in Louisiana.
A death record issued on Thursday, April 27, in the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office noted that Donham died in Westlake, Louisiana, two nights earlier.
Donham’s false claims against Emmett Till set off a chain of events that sparked the modern civil rights movement.
After the teen’s mother insisted his casket remain open during the funeral and photos of Till’s battered and mutilated body appeared in Jet Magazine, the world received a birds-eye view of the brutality of America’s rampant racism.
In August 1955, Till traveled from Chicago to Mississippi to spend time with relatives.
Donham, then 21 years old and going by the name Carolyn Bryant, accused Till of making inappropriate approaches toward her while she worked at a grocery shop in the small town of Money, Mississippi.
According to the Reverend Wheeler Parker, a cousin of Till who was present at the time, the 14-year-old Till whistled at the woman, which was an act that violated the racist social standards that were prevalent in Mississippi.
Evidence suggested a lady identified Emmett Till to Donham’s then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, who were responsible for Till’s murder.
An all-white jury acquitted the two white suspects, but the men later confessed their guilt in an interview with Look magazine.
In 2022, the Associated Press secured a copy of Donham’s unpublished memoir, in which she claimed that she had no idea what would become of Till.
The outlet noted that the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting was the first organization to reveal the contents of the 99-page book titled “I am More Than A Wolf Whistle.”
Author and historian Timothy Tyson of Durham, North Carolina, gave reporters a copy of the book. Tyson claimed he received a copy from Donham in 2008 while interviewing her, the Associated Press reported.
Though Tyson claimed to have provided the FBI with the text, the agency ended its lengthy investigation into Donham in 2021. The book was deposited in an archive at the University of North Carolina with the promise that it would only be made public at a later time.
Tyson stated that he decided to make it public after individuals performing research at the Leflore County courthouse in Mississippi in June 2022 discovered an arrest warrant on abduction charges that were issued for “Mrs. Roy Bryant” in 1955 but were never served or executed.
In March 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act of 2022, making lynching a federal hate crime. Earlier, the bipartisan measure passed both chambers of Congress.
The legislation received pushback from three Republicans – Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Chip Roy of Texas. Each was the lone vote against the bill.
“I could not have been prouder to stand behind President Biden as he signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law,” National Urban League President Marc Morial stated.
“The act of lynching is a weapon of racial terror that has been used for decades, and our communities are still impacted by these hate crimes to this day,” Morial continued.
“This bill is long overdue, and I applaud President Biden and Members of Congress for their leadership in honoring Emmett Till and other lynching victims by passing this significant piece of legislation.”
According to the bill’s text, “Whoever conspires to commit any offense… shall (A) if death results from the offense, be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.” “(B) In any other case, be subjected to the same penalties as the penalties prescribed for the offense of the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.”
Specifically, the legislation makes lynching a federal hate crime, punishable by up to life in prison.
The measure had faced defeat for over 100 years, with lawmakers attempting to pass the legislation more than 200 times. The House finally passed the bill on a 422-3 vote. It passed unanimously in the Senate.

  • Emmett Till’s accuser admits it was all a lie

    emmett-till

    By Stacy M. Brown (The Washington Informer/NNPA Member)

    More than six decades after the horrific, racially-motivated murder of Emmett Till, the White woman who accused the Chicago teenager of verbally and physically accosting her in Money, Miss., in 1955, has admitted she lied, according to a new book.

    Till had allegedly whistled at and groped Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old White woman, while at a country store in the small town.

    After the encounter, Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, and J.W. Milam tracked young Emmett down, kidnapped him, tortured him, shot him, and then tied his battered body to a cotton gin fan using barbed wire and dumped him in the muddy Tallahatchie River. Later, the two men were acquitted of the murder by an all-White, all-male jury after an hour’s deliberation. Till’s brutal killing and photos of his open casket at his funeral helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.

    During the trial, Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett, who was 14, had made physical and verbal advances toward her, a sensational claim that increased tensions surrounding the case. She testified that Emmett had grabbed and threatened her inside the store – and that he had used an “unprintable” word when he told her he had been intimate “with White women before.”

    But according to a 2007 interview, newly revealed in the book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” Carolyn Bryant admits that it never happened.

    “That part’s not true,” she told writer Timothy Tyson, according to “Vanity Fair,” though she claimed she could not recall what happened the rest of the evening at her husband’s country store, where Emmett stopped by briefly on Aug. 24, 1955, to buy two cents worth of gum.

    Till was shot in the head and was found with barbed wire wrapped around his neck; one of his eyes was gouged out. “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she is quoted as saying. Bryant’s testimony was out of the earshot of the jury, but helped to frame the case publicly.

    “I was just scared to death,” she said in court. The two killers later admitted their guilt, after their acquittals.

    Emmett Till’s murder became the flashpoint in the American Civil Rights Movement. Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mother, had even insisted on an open casket at his funeral, leading to photographs of his battered corpse being spread across the country, which helped focus public attention on what was happening in the heart of the country.

    In 2004, the FBI reopened the case to see if any accomplices could be hauled to court, but a grand jury decided three years later that there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges.

    The young Carolyn Bryant went into hiding after the murder trial — divorcing and marrying twice more — and remained mum on the case until she gave the interview with Tyson, the “New York Post” reported.

    Bryant is now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham. Donham told Tyson that she “felt tender sorrow” for Emmett’s mother, who died in 2003, but Tyson doesn’t mention if Donham expressed guilt or apologized.

    Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has said she thought about Emmett when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., a few months after his death.

    The shocking crime was memorialized in the arts and literature; in Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s play “Dreaming Emmett,” a Langston Hughes poem, and a song by Bob Dylan.

    The whereabouts of the now-82-year-old Donham are unknown.

    The Washington Informer is a member publication of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Learn more about becoming a member at http://www.nnpa.org.