Emmett Till’s Accuser Dies At Age 88

When the death of Carolyn Bryant Donham was announced, news organizations published the Louisiana coroner’s announcement and provided the historical context: Donham was the white woman who accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of making advances directed at her in a grocery store in 1955 during his summer visit to Money, Mississippi, to spend time with extended family. Her allegations led to the brutal murder and lynching of the teenager which galvanized Black America and figured prominently in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement.

Donham’s then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped and killed Till. An all-white jury acquitted the two men, but the men later confessed in a magazine interview.

Decades later – as recently as last year — a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Donham, citing insufficient evident after an unserved arrest warrant was found.

In her unpublished memoir, Donham said Milam and her husband brought Till to her the night they kidnapped him and asked her to identify the teenager. She said she tried to help Till by denying that he was the teenager in question.

A Till Relative Responds

One of Till’s relatives told the Associated Press that she had mixed emotions about Donham’s death.

Ollie Gordon was 7 years old when Till disappeared.

Gordon said, “She was never tried in the court of man. But I think she was judged by God, and his wrath is more punitive than any judgement or penalty she could have gotten in a courtroom. I don’t think she had a pleasant or happy life.”

Many on social media were not as gracious.

For more than 65 years, many African American leaders pushed for an anti-lynching law. Last year President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, making lynching a federal crime.