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Till's accuser, Carolyn Bryant Donham, has died -

The case has had a long and painful public history, with it being reopened in 2018 following historian Timothy Tyson's 2017 book 'The Blood of Emmett Till,' which claimed that Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who accused Till of grabbing her in a grocery store, had lied in her courtroom testimony about the purported sexual advances which ultimately led to Till's lynching. However, in a statement on December 6, 2021, the US Department of Justice said that the FBI had interviewed Donham, and she had denied ever disavowing her testimony, and did not provide any further information. With "insufficient evidence" available, the inquiry was closed once more without charges. On April 25, 2023, Donham passed away at the age of 88, never having been charged for her role in Till's death. 

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The initial story -

Till, originally from Chicago, was visiting his family in the heart of the segregated Old South when he allegedly whistled at, and made sexual advances on, a white woman in a grocery store that she owned with her husband.

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An atrocious and unfounded punishment - He was kidnapped by the woman’s husband and his half-brother, beaten and mutilated beyond recognition, shot dead, and his body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River.

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The murderers were acquitted - Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam stood on trial in front of an all-white jury, who deliberated for less than an hour and ultimately acquitted them of the heinous crime. Mrs. Bryant also testified that the young boy grabbed her around the waist while uttering obscenities.

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The men later confessed -

Protected by double jeopardy, the pair confessed in a 1956 interview with Look magazine to abducting and beating Till, as well as throwing him into the river with a 75 lb cotton gin fan tied to his neck. They showed no remorse.

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Till’s mother’s difficult decision changed everything -

Mamie Till was advised not to open the casket when it was sent to her in Chicago, but she chose to show the country what the mangled face of injustice looks like.

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Public outcry ensued -

Thousands attended his funeral or viewed his open casket, images of his mutilated body were published in magazines and newspapers, and his image became emblematic of the injustices suffered by blacks in the South.

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Rosa Parks took a stand in 1955 -

Rosa Parks is considered the “Mother of The Civil Rights Movement," and she first refused to give up her seat on the bus in December of the same year of Till’s death.

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She had actually attended a rally for Till prior -

And the rally was led by none other than Martin Luther King Jr. Parks later confirmed that Till was in her mind when she was on the bus that December day.

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Sit-ins, boycotts, freedom rides, and marches - The civil rights movement was at its peak from 1955-1965. After a decade of nonviolent protests and marches, including the pictured 1963 March on Washington, congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Till is included on the Mississippi Freedom Trail -

The trail was created in 2011 to commemorate the people and places in the state that played a pivotal role in the American civil rights movement.

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People are still fighting under his name - Alvin Sykes is the director of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, and he was a loud voice in a 2007 uproar following former KKK member James Seale’s plea of not guilty to charges in the 1964 murders of two black teenagers.

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His image belongs rightfully to the black community -

Dana Schutz, a white artist, had a painting titled “Open Casket” on display at the Whitney Biennial. It interpreted photos from Till’s funeral, and in 2017 black artists protested her exploitation of the traumatic incident.

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In 2004, the case was officially reopened - The US Department of Justice wanted to verify that the body was, in fact, Till’s, as the defense team in the 1955 trial had questioned it.

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Were there other people involved? -

The investigation was reportedly also prompted by two documentaries that suggested that there were others beyond Bryant and Milam that had been involved in the crime.

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His body was exhumed in 2005 - Family and friends gathered to watch his casket be pulled from the earth. Till's body was later positively identified as his own.

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Case closed, again - After all that, the federal case was ultimately closed in 2007 after the Justice Department concluded that the statute of limitations had expired.

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Carolyn Bryant remained free of criminal charges -

The Till case was, however, presented to a grand jury, asking that Mrs. Bryant be charged with manslaughter, but no indictments were issued.

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In 2008, Bryant allegedly came forward about her lie -

After she was in the clear, Bryant confessed to historian Timothy Tyson that she had fabricated the part of her testimony in which Till supposedly grabbed her and made grotesque sexual advances.

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A fatal fib in Jim Crow-era Mississippi -

Her lie was as good as a death sentence at the time. Bryant, decades later, admitted that “nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”

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Till’s cousin confirmed the whistle -

Simeon Wright was with Till in the grocery store that day, and he confirmed that his cousin did, in fact, whistle at Bryant. “I think [Emmett] wanted to get a laugh out of us or something,” Wright said.

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Bryant’s confession stirred America once again -

A 2017 editorial in The New York Times said, "This admission is a reminder of how black lives were sacrificed to white lies in places like Mississippi. It also raises anew the question of why no one was brought to justice in the most notorious racially motivated murder of the 20th century."

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Though it did satisfy some -

Like Wheeler Parker, one of Emmett’s cousins, who said Bryant’s confession was important for people to understand “how the word of a white person against a black person was law.”

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Parallels have been drawn to Trayvon Martin - Particularly as a young black man who was shot down when he was unarmed, and especially as his murderer, officer George Zimmerman, was acquitted of the crime.

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Beyoncé and Jay-Z joined a 2013 rally for Martin -

The pop singer wrote on her website, "When we all join together, people of all races, we have the power to change the world we live in. We must fight for Trayvon the same way the generation before us fought for Emmett Till."

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Should it be replaced, or put on display? -

The bullet-ridden marker of the place where Till’s body was found was actually the third installation. The first was stolen, and the second was destroyed by gunfire. According to The Washington Post, Dave Tell, author of the forthcoming book ‘Remembering Emmett Till,’ argues that the sign should be left up with the bullet holes, revealing the truth of the reality we currently live in—not unlike an open casket.

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The case continued, over 60 years later -

The Department of Justice reopened the investigation—again—in March 2018, following in their effort to investigate racially-motivated historic murders.

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Federal obstacles - Beyond the statute of limitations, double jeopardy, and the fact that many suspects have died, federal hate crimes law also states that racially motivated attacks committed before 1968 cannot be prosecuted.

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Can there be justice? -

It seems all possibility of jailing someone for Till's murder is gone. However, his death will not be forgotten.

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The people remember -

His memory lives on, and hopefully so too will the flame that his death ignited, which has created a real, tangible change in the world.

See also: Defining moments in black history

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