A grand jury in Leflore County, Mississippi has refused to return an indictment for Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman whose accusations ultimately led to the brutal lynching of teenager Emmett Till in 1955, Mississippi Today reports.
The district attorney had proposed charges of kidnapping and manslaughter for Donham, the white woman who accused Till of whistling at her in the store where she worked. Donham told her then-husband, Roy Bryant, of the incident, and Bryant and his half-brother hunted down Till, bringing the boy to Donham to ID.
In a recently released draft memoir written decades ago, Donham says Till was defiant after Donham claims she refused to confirm that it was Till who whistled at her; in the memoir, she claims Till confessed, which would be an odd thing for a Black boy in the hands of a drunken, angry Mississippi racist to do. In other accounts, Donham acknowledges she confirmed Till’s actions to her husband.
