Over the past two weeks there have been several developments related to the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955. Till, who was Black, was 14 years old at the time. A White woman named Carolyn Bryant Donham apparently reported that he whistled at her, grabbed her, and propositioned her while she was in a grocery store. Ms. Donham’s then-husband and another White man responded to her allegations by abducting Till from his home at gunpoint and killing him. The men were charged with murder, were acquitted by an all-White jury, and later admitted culpability in media interviews. Durham historian Timothy Tyson wrote about the incident in his 2017 book The Blood of Emmett Till.
Two weeks ago, the New York Times reported on the discovery of a 1955 kidnapping warrant for Ms. Donham, who is in her 80s and apparently lives here in North Carolina. The arrest warrant is technically still valid but the experts interviewed by the Times say it is unlikely to be served without a current examination of the potential merits of the case.
Speaking of which, the Associated Press reported yesterday on its review of an unpublished 99-page memoir by Ms. Donham. The memoir was provided to the AP by Mr. Tyson, who had obtained the document from Ms. Donham but “placed the manuscript in an archive at the University of North Carolina with the agreement that it not be made public for decades.” He decided to break the agreement after the Times story noted above. According to the AP story, Ms. Donham’s memoir generally portrays herself as attempting to prevent harm from coming to Till, but also contradicts some of her previous statements and is inconsistent with other evidence in the case, raising questions about her credibility. Stay tuned for further developments and keep reading for more news.
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