Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman whose accusations led to the abduction and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Miss., in August 1955, has died at age 88. Before his murder, she accused Till, a Black 14-year-old from Chicago who was visiting family in Mississippi, of flirting with her. His murder helped spark the civil rights movement.
Though officials never charged her with a crime in Till’s lynching, calls for Donham’s arrest continued until her death. A group from the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, working with filmmaker Keith Beauchamp in 2022, uncovered a 1955 warrant for her arrest, but a Leflore County grand jury declined to indict her last August despite the discovery.
In 1955, then-Leflore County Sheriff George Smith refused to serve the warrant against Donham. “We aren’t going to bother the woman, she’s got two small boys to take care of,” he said at the time.
Jerry Mitchell first reported Donham’s death at Mississippi Today this morning and that she had been diagnosed with cancer. The Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office in Louisiana confirmed to the Mississippi Free Press this morning that Donham had died and provided the Fact of Letter documenting her death. It indicates she died Tuesday at 620 Niel Road in Westlake, La.
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A group from the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation discovered an unserved 1955 warrant for the arrest of “Mrs. Roy Bryant,” second from right, for the kidnapping of Emmett Till in Leflore County in 2022. An all-white jury acquitted her husband, Roy Bryant, and his accomplice J.W. Milam after the 1955 murder, but they later admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine. AP Photo, File
After his death, Till’s mother held an open-casket funeral ceremony for her son in Chicago to show the world his unrecognizable face. An all-white jury acquitted J.W. Milan and Roy Bryant, who was Carolyn Bryant’s husband at the time, for Till’s murder.
Both men later confessed to the crime while speaking with Look magazine, which paid $4,000 for the interview. Roy Bryant and his accomplice J.W. Milam died without ever facing justice for their crimes.
Donham’s