Relatives of Emmett Till joined supporters Friday to demand that authorities drop their decision to close the investigation into the 1955 murder of a black teenager and instead prosecute Carolyn Bryant Donham, white woman in the center of the case.
“We demand that the state of Mississippi hold Carolyn Bryant Donna accountable for her role in the kidnapping and imprisonment of Emmett Louis Till.” Emmett’s cousin Deborah Watts said in a recent press conference. “It is important for you to know that Emmett’s murder remains unsolved and that the last surviving accomplice in the murder case is Carolyn Bryant. And yes, she is alive. She denied that she told her story that Emmett was sexually advanced with her… and that her family sided with the lie she told in 1955. She said lie and Emmett is dead. ”
Till was kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman in a store. His death sent shockwaves across the country and caused a stir in Civil Ri .ghts motion. Two white men, JW Milam and Roy Bryant, not only confessed to torturing and killing 14-year-old Till. But in an interview with Look magazine, they even admitted to shooting and throwing his body into the Tallahatchie River. And in true American fashion, the pair were acquitted by an all-white jury.
In December, the Justice Department announced the end of a new investigation into Till’s murder after officials reopened the investigation for a third time in 2017.
On Monday, Congress finally passed legislation that would make it a federal hate crime for the first time, sending the bill to President Joe Biden. Years in the making, the Emmett Anti-Lynching Act was among 200 bills enacted over the past century that attempted to ban lynching in the US.
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