In this 1955 file photo, Carolyn Bryant Donham, then known as Carolyn Bryant, has died. She is at the center of a lawsuit claiming she has an unserved warrant for her arrest in the kidnapping of Emmett Till, right, brutally killed in Mississippi in 1955. (AP Photos)
The white woman who made the false accusation that led to the lynching of Emmett Till, one of the United States’ most infamous acts of racial violence, in Mississippi in 1955 has died in Louisiana, a coroner’s report said.
Carolyn Bryant Donham, 88, died Tuesday night in Westlake, Louisiana, according to a death report from the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office in Louisiana emailed to Law&Crime.
“The woman whose lies in 1955 put the torture of Emmett in motion died today,” said Patrick Weems, the executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, in a statement responding to the death. “She continued to uphold these lies and to protect the murderers until her death. While the world saw the horrors of racism, and the real consequences of hatred, what the world will never see is remorse or responsibility for Emmett’s death.”
The statement said the Center would continue working to educate people worldwide about what Till’s life and his mother’s work meant to racial healing and freedom, the statement said.
“Since we will never see justice through the criminal justice system, we will continue working toward restorative justice for the memory of Emmett Till and for the people of the Mississippi Delta,” Weems said.
Malik Shabazz, the lawyer representing Till’s cousin, Patricia Sterling, who filed a lawsuit in federal court on Feb. 7 seeking to compel Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks to serve an arrest warrant for Donham, who went by Carolyn Bryant in 1955, said in a statement that her legacy will be one of “dishonesty and injustice” and one that “verifies that Mississippi coddles and protects white supremacy.”
“Carolyn Bryant’s death brings a conclusion to a painful chapter for the Emmett Till family and for Black peoples in America,” the statement said. “The tragic part about Bryant’s death was that she was never held accountable for her role in the death of young Emmett Till, who is the martyr for the Civil Rights Movement.
“Mississippi officials over the years protected Ms. Bryant from Justice, and Leflore County Prosecutors and law enforcement officials failed to pursue Justice against Ms. Bryant. Our unrelenting pressure against Carolyn Bryant will not be forgotten.”
Banks’ attorney filed a motion to dismiss the case on April 13, saying the arrest warrant was rendered moot by a Leflore County grand jury after it determined there was insufficient evidence to indict Donham for kidnapping or manslaughter of Till.
“Since the Arrest warrant is moot, all claims against Banks should be dismissed with prejudice,” the court document said.
In an email to Law&Crime, Shabazz said the lawsuit remains active.
“The lawsuit is not dead,” he said. “Plaintiff will still seek redress from Sheriff Banks and Leflore County Prosecutors as to why Carolyn Bryant was never charged. We believe that a conspiracy has existed for nearly 70 years by Mississippi officials to protect Bryant’s criminal involvement in the murder of Emmett Till. Therefore, our complaint will be amended, and the struggle for justice in the Emmett Till case continues.”
Till was kidnapped on Aug. 28, 1955. by Roy Bryant, Donham’s husband at the time, and J.W. Milam, from the home of his great uncle.
A teenager who was fishing discovered his body floating in the river three days later. He had been brutally beaten and shot in the head. His body was tied with barbed wire to a 75-pound cotton gin fan, authorities said.
Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam were tried for murder, and an all-white male jury acquitted them. They later confessed to committing the murder to a journalist. They have both since died.
In 2004, the FBI reopened the investigation as part of a cold case initiative to determine if others were involved.
The following year, authorities exhumed Till’s body for an autopsy.
The FBI closed the case in 2006, saying the statute of limitations on potential federal criminal civil rights violations had expired.
At the time of Till’s death, there were no federal hate crime statutes.
In 2021, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi announced it closed its investigation of the alleged recantation of the events leading up to Till’s murder.
Just last year, President Joe Biden signed the “Emmett Till Antilynching Act,” making lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in American history.
“Racial hate isn’t an old problem; it’s a persistent problem. A persistent problem,” he said. “And I know many of the civil rights leaders here know, and you heard me say it a hundred times: Hate never goes away; it only hides. It hides under the rocks. And given just a little bit of oxygen, it comes roaring back out, screaming. But what stops it is all of us, not a few. All of us have to stop it.”
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