Emmett Till’s family calls for murder charges against accuser in 1955 lynching

Justice Department reopened, then closed, renewed probe into Black teenager’s killing

The family of Emmett Till has appealed to Mississippi’s top prosecutor and federal authorities to pursue criminal charges against the woman whose accusations against him led to his 1955 murder, a striking reflection of Jim Crow-era violence that galvanised the Civil Rights movement.

Deborah Watts, one of Till’s cousins and a co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, said the organisation has collected more than 250,000 signatures petitioning for murder charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham, a white woman who accused the Black 14-year-old boy of harassing her in 1955, and among the last-living witnesses to his killing.

“We will bear witness to the hatred that has been embedded in our DNA since the slave ships arrived,” Ms Watts said from the state Capitol on 11 March, according to the Clarion-Ledger. “We made a promise to [his mother] that we would persist and that’s why we’re here today.”

Ms Donham, then 21 years old, testified that Till grabbed her waist and made sexual advances against her at a grocery store she owned with her husband Roy.

A few days later, Roy Bryant and his half-brother JW Milam then armed themselves to kidnap Till before torturing, beating and shooting him in the head and sinking his body into the Tallahatchie River. His body was discovered three days later.

Following a murder trial, an all-white jury acquitted the men. Months later, they admitted to their crimes in an interview with Look magazine.

A federal investigation reopened the case in 2018 following the publication of Timothy Tyson’s The Blood of Emmett Till which included a confession from Ms Donham claiming that her allegations at the time were false.

In December, the US Department of Justice announced that a renewed probe into the killing had ended, after Ms Donham “denied to the FBI that she ever recanted her testimony and provided no information beyond what was uncovered during the previous federal investigation,” according to federal prosecutors.

“The government’s re-investigation found no new evidence suggesting that either the woman or any other living person was involved in Till’s abduction and murder,” the Justice Department said in a statement on 6 December 2021. “Even if such evidence could be developed, no federal hate crime laws existed in 1955, and the statute of limitations has run on the only civil rights statutes that were in effect at that time. As such, even if a living suspect could now be identified, a federal prosecution for Till’s abduction and murder would not be possible.”

Michelle Williams, chief of staff for Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, said in a statement this week that the office was unlikely to pursue another investigation.

“This is a tragic and horrible crime, but the FBI, which has far greater resources than our office, has investigated this matter twice and determined that there is nothing more to prosecute,” Ms Williams said in a statement.

Mississippi’s Republican governor Tate Reeves said in a press conference on Friday that “the lynching of any teenager is of significance and certainly something that we as a society should do anything in our power to make sure that we bring anyone that committed that crime, or any other, to justice.”

Ms Watts said on Friday that the family holds the state “responsible for bringing justice forward”.

“You have the opportunity. You just need the will and the courage to make that happen,” she said.

The Till family’s call to action follows years-in-the-making congressional approval of legislation to designate lynching a federal hate crime under the Emmett Till Anti-Lynch Act, among dozens of bills introduced over the last several decades to officially ban such violence in the US.