Emmett Till’s family members demanded federal authorities continue their suspended investigation of the boy’s lynching on Friday. With the help of supporters, Till’s family requested that the woman at the center of the Black 14-year-old’s death, Carolyn Bryant Donham—who is now in her 80s, be prosecuted. “Time is not on our side,” Till’s cousin, Deborah Watts said. In 1955, Donham, a white woman, claimed that Till whistled at her while she worked at her family’s store in Mississippi. Till was later kidnapped, tortured, and killed by a group of white men. Donham’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother were charged in Till’s death. The men were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury, but they eventually admitted in an interview that they killed the boy. In 2017, the FBI reopened the case after Donham allegedly said she lied about the incident, but the Department of Justice ended the probe in December 2021. Till’s murder has been attributed as the initial event that sparked the Civil Rights Movement.
