True Confession: Woman Who Got Emmett Till Murdered Admits She LIED (VIDEOS)

There’s a reason many African-Americans of a certain age cringed at Donald Trump’s blatantly racist dog whistles during the campaign. It brought back memories of the brutal murder of Emmett Till. In 1955, Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi when two white men, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam yanked him out of his house and beat him for several hours before shooting him in the head and tossing him in the river.

They were driven into a rage after Carolyn Bryant–Roy’s wife and J. W.’s sister–told them that Till had made a pass at her and wolf-whistled at her when he was in the country store that she and Roy owned. Till’s mother, Mamie, had him brought back to Chicago for an open-casket funeral. The sight of his swollen body, by all accounts, ramped up the Civil Rights Movement. Bryant and Milam were acquitted after a 1955 trial, only to brazenly admit a year later that they killed Till. Well, on Friday, obscenity and insult were piled onto injury. The author of a new book on the Till case revealed that Carolyn Bryant now admits Till never made a pass at her.

As part of the research for his book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” civil rights historian Timothy Tyson spoke with Carolyn Bryant, who has since divorced twice and is now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham, in 2007. When the discussion turned to whether Till made any advances toward her, the then 72-year-old Bryant Donham said simply, “That’s not true.” She went on to say that she couldn’t remember what else happened that day in the store.

Bryant Donham said that whatever Till might have done, “nothing that boy ever did could ever justify what happened to him.” She also admits feeling “tender sorrow” for Mamie, particularly after one of her own sons died. Although a 2006 investigation by the FBI found no evidence of any inappropriate behavior on Till’s part, until this revelation, it had been entirely possible that Bryant Donham misinterpreted whatever happened–a valid prospect in 1950s Mississippi. But now, she admits that she made the whole thing up.

WBBM-TV in Chicago spoke with Till’s cousin, Wheeler Parker, about this revelation. Watch here.

Parker, who was in the store with Till, says he has prayed for Bryant Donham over the years. He said that Bryant was “a courageous woman” and “a civil woman” for coming forward. With all due respect, I have to disagree. Bryant Donham’s disclosure isn’t courageous. It’s outrageous and cowardly.

It is entirely possible that she cooked up this story on orders from Roy and/or J. W. But even if you allow for that, any defensible reason for her to wait this long before coming forward ended when she divorced Roy, and certainly died with Roy in 1994 (Milam died in 1980). Bryant testified at her husband and brother’s trial, but did so outside the presence of the jury. However, it was entered into the trial record, and it is simply inconceivable that the jurors didn’t find out about it. Thus, her outrageously false and outrageously perjurous testimony may very well have allowed her husband and brother to get away with murder.

More important than any legal consideration, however, Bryant Donham’s silence is unconscionable on a moral level. If she had so much “tender sorrow” for Mamie–later known as Mamie Till-Mobley–then why didn’t she come forward sooner? As a result of Bryant Donham’s silence, Mamie died in 2003 without knowing the truth about what happened to her son.

Bryant Donham has sent the manuscript of her memoirs to the University of North Carolina’s Southern Historical Collection, and will not be released to the public until 2036. But if there is any justice at all left in this country, Bryant Donham will have to tell her story before then–under oath. She may be 82 years old now, but that doesn’t matter.  She needs to answer for what now stands as one of the most egregious cases of perjury on record.

Michael Shure of The Young Turks discussed this case on Friday, and mused that the statute of limitations may preclude any effort to hold Bryant Donham to account. Watch here.

I hope Shure is wrong about this. After all, it is well-established that statutes of limitations don’t apply in cases of fraudulent conduct. On the face of it, this woman’s perjury is the very definition of fraudulent conduct. It cannot be stated enough–her lies may have not only gotten an innocent boy murdered, but also allowed her killers to go free instead of going to prison where they belonged.

If it is legally possible to do so, some prosecutor either in Mississippi or at the federal level needs to grow a pair and charge Bryant Donham with perjury and false reporting. It’s not likely she’ll get any prison time, but if she has anything in her, she will accept probation or house arrest. There are certain crimes that no civilized society can tolerate, and this is one of them. But even if it isn’t legally possible to hold Bryant Donham to account in court, she will have some explaining to do at some point for why she not only lied, but sat on it for so long.

(featured image courtesy Image Editor, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.