White woman whose claim led to Emmett Till killing has died

The Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of whistling at her – causing his 1955 lynching in Mississippi, which galvanized a generation of activists to rise up in the Civil Rights Movement – has died at 88.

Carolyn Bryant Donham died Tuesday night in hospice care in Westlake, Louisiana. That’s according to a death report filed Thursday in Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office.

Till’s kidnapping and brutal murder became a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement when his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago so the world could see his brutalized body in photos published by Jet magazine.

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4/27/2023 2:48:01 PM (GMT -5:00)