Where Is Carolyn Bryant Now And What Happened With Emmett Till?

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CAROLYN Bryant Donham was the woman whose accusation led to the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955.

The African American teen was murdered for allegedly flirting with Carolyn. But who was she and what happened? Here’s everything you need to know.

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Emmet Till was wrongfully accused of offending grocery store worker Carolyn Bryant

Who was Carolyn Bryant?

Hailing from Indianola, Mississippi, Carolyn was a high school drop out who married Roy Bryant, an ex-soldier.

During the 1950s, the couple ran a small grocery, Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market, that sold provisions to black sharecroppers and their children.

They had two sons and lived in two small rooms in the back of the store.

What happened with Emmett Till?

On the evening of August 24, 1955, Carolyn was on shift when young Emmett Till entered the shop with his friends for refreshments.

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Known as a prankster, Emmett had previously bragged to his cousins that he had a white girlfriend back home and was dared to ask Carolyn, a white woman, out on a date.

Though exactly what happened next is uncertain, Carolyn later claimed that the teen grabbed her, made lewd advances, and whistled at her as he left.

When Bryant’s husband, Roy returned to town a few days later he rushed over to Till’s family house with his half-brother J.W. Milam and forced Till into their car.

After beating him, they drove him down to the Tallahatchie River where they made him carry a 75-pound cotton gin fan to the bank and then ordered him to take off his clothes.

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The two men beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river where his body was discovered three days later.

They were acquitted of murder by a local, all-white jury but confessed to murdering Till a year later to a journalist at Look magazine.

The pair never served any jail time.

What happened to Carolyn Bryant Donham?

After making the accusation that led to Till’s brutal murder, Carolyn stepped away from the spotlight.

She later divorced Roy and remarried twice – persistently declining interview requests from the media.

But roughly 60 years after the incident took place, Tim Tyson, author of the book The Blood Of Emmett Till, revealed that Carolyn recanted her testimony during a memoir.

She confessed that the accusations that Till touched, threatened, or harassed her were “not true”.

She later added: “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”

When did Carolyn Bryant Donham die?

Carolyn died in April 2023 in Westlake, Louisiana.

She was 88 years old and had reportedly been in a hospice after being diagnosed with cancer.

Prosecutors had sought to charge her for her role in Till’s death but never managed to get her to trial.

In 2022 an attempt to have her indicted by a grand jury for kidnapping and manslaughter failed.

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A statement from the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley Institute said that they “wish mercy on her soul, even as we regret that she never took responsibility for her role” in the boy’s murder.

The statement added: “While the world saw the horrors of racism in Emmett’s murder, the real consequences of hatred, what the world will never now see is remorse or responsibility for his death.”

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