OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Five hundred miles from where Emmett Till died, his Oklahoma kin, Joshua Harris-Till, issued a renewed call for justice in the lynching death of his cousin.
“We all heard about the Emmett Till story growing up,” said the cousin, also saying the family connection made him dive deep into the history, doing research on his own.
“[That] there was no intention of charging these gentlemen with the kidnapping and murder and lynching of Emmett is probably the most disheartening part of it,” he added.
“[There] are so many details that a lot of people just don’t know,” he said. “I think the number one thing to know is that there is a story that has needed to be told in its entirety for a very long time.”
In 1955, Emmett Till, 14, was kidnapped and brutally murdered by white men after a white woman declared that Till propositioned her. The amplified call comes days after a team combing the basement of a Mississippi courthouse for more evidence unearthed an unserved arrest warrant issued in 1955 for the woman who accused him – Carolyn Bryant Donham, as reported by the Associated Press.
The search included members of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and two other Till relatives.
Speaking to KFOR Thursday, Joshua Harris-Till said his family is now calling for another warrant to be issued for her arrest.
“We knew [about the warrant] the entire time, so [for] our family, it’s not even about arresting this lady,” he said.
“The easiest thing for them to do is to go arrest her,” he continued. “The harder thing for them to do is to do the research on why that warrant wasn’t executed in the first place and then take the steps to dismantle the systematic influences that created that situation.”
Case files showed a federal investigation occurred back in 2004; however, The Department of Justice determined that the case “lacked jurisdiction to bring federal charges at that time.” A state grand jury also declined to bring any further indictments.
Subsequently, a notice to close a cold-case investigation was also issued on Dec. 6, 2021, by the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to various reports, Bryant-Donham has not spoken publicly about the calls for her prosecution.
“There is a dispute there, but there have been people who for a while have said you know she needs to be prosecuted for her role in this matter; it’s gone back and forth,” said Ronald J. Rychlak, Distinguished Professor of Law, Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government at the University of Mississippi.
Rychlak is also a member of the Mississippi Supreme Court’s Criminal Law Reform Committee and of the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
“There’s a fascinating historical question,” he added.
“Why was the warrant not served? Why was she not arrested? Was it an oversight and it was [just] overlooked? Was it a racial thing? Did they say, ‘We’re [just] not going to prosecute this white woman?’ It could have been any of those things.”
“[The original warrant] actually had the two men and her name on it. The two men – there were checkmarks next to them, maybe because they’d been arrested, but she was not arrested. There’s no checkmark next to her name,” he said, referring to that document.
The professor said he believes warrants can “go stale,” due to time or changing circumstances in cases, but new information coupled with probable cause could lead to prosecution in the case.
Citing a justice system that failed in 1950s Mississippi, the law professor and civil rights expert said another warrant could be issued with probable cause; however, relying solely on the facts as presented back in 1955 could be insufficient to move forward with a new case.
“What does that mean? She could have been arrested in 1955; could she be arrested on that warrant today,” he said. “We have presumably more information today…including whatever information was uncovered during the grand jury investigation. If officers today believe there is probable cause to arrest [Carolyn Donham] they [could] go in front of a judge tomorrow and ask for a warrant.”
According to reports, Till was kidnapped, beaten and shot in the head, before his brutalized body was thrown into a nearby river.
“I absolutely believe we should look into this,” Rychlak continued. “Emmett Till’s mother, what a tremendously courageous act and how hard that must been for her to look at her young son and demand that the casket be opened so that people could see what had happened; and for his relatives today to ask for justice, to ask for reinvestigation.”
“[How] are officials going to right that wrong? Where is the state? Where is the city? Where is the municipality? Where is the attorney general? What is the justice system going to do,” said Harris-Till.
“If we ignore any of the story, then we’re ignoring the whole of the story,” he continued. “We can make this better, but we can’t make it better by pretending the past didn’t happen.”
