In connection with the lynching of Emmett Till, an unserved warrant from 1955 was discovered in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse.
The family of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black child who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in Mississippi in 1955 by his 70-year-old white female accuser is now seeking her arrest.
A crew looking for Till’s lynching evidence in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse this week came across a warrant for Carolyn Bryant Donham’s arrest, the warrant was issued on August 29, 1955, one day following Till’s lynching.
When Donham, then Carolyn Bryant, was working the register at her family’s store in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955, she accused Till of making inappropriate approaches and vulgar remarks toward her. Donham was 21 years old at the time.
According to a cousin who saw the incident, Till, who was visiting from Chicago, allegedly whistled at her. Such a conversation broke the rules of Southern racism during the Jim Crow era.
Donham disclosed the alleged encounter to Roy Bryant, her husband. Bryant and his half-brother John William Milam took the young teen from his great-house uncle two nights later, beat him, shot him, and dumped his body in a river because Bryant was furious that a black lad had allegedly come on to his white wife.
In the case testimony, a woman—possibly Donham—identified Till as his killer, leading to the issuance of a warrant for her arrest.
At the time, the warrant was publicized in the media, but it was never executed. She was the mother of two young children, and the Leflore County sheriff had previously told reporters that he didn’t want to “bother” her.
After 70 years, Till’s family wants the police to serve it and take her into custody. Donham is currently in her 80s and resides in North Carolina.
“Serve it and charge her,” Teri Watts, a relative of Till, told the Associated Press.
Deborah Watts, a distant cousin of Till said, “Mississippi is not the Mississippi of 1955, but it seems to still carry some of that era of protecting the white woman.”
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Sources: Dailywire, Apnews, Reuters
