# Emmett Till's accuser dies **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 27, 2023, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282 "2023-04-27T17:10:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/1 "2023-04-27T17:10:20Z")
[Carolyn Bryant has died at age 88](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/us/carolyn-bryant-donham-dead.html). In recent years, there were renewed calls for law enforcement officials to question her about her shifting and dubious accusations that led to the [brutal murder of Emmett Till](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till) in Mississippi in 1955. Justice delayed… ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/2 "2023-04-27T17:53:00Z")
One less lying, racist coward in the world. If this was the Pit I’d be much less kind. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/3 "2023-04-27T17:59:51Z")
Was this lady coerced or complicit in these accusations? I have no desire to to defend this woman btw. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/4 "2023-04-28T20:07:04Z")
It sounds like she complained to her family, and her brother killed the guy. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/5 "2023-04-28T20:18:32Z")
Yup, that’s exactly what happened. Then she changed her story several times over the years. A warrant was issued for her arrest the day after Till was kidnapped and murdered but the local sheriff never bothered arresting her. When the warrant was rediscovered last year the local sheriff… still didn’t bother arresting her. Till’s murderers were arrested, tried, found not guilty (shocker, that) and then gleefully told anyone who would listen – including reporters from _Look_ magazine – exactly how they killed the kid. Sick, vile people the lot of them. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/6 "2023-04-28T20:24:56Z")
Thanks for clearing that up. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/7 "2023-04-28T20:38:46Z")
It was actually Bryant’s husband and his half-brother that killed Till. Bryant told her husband that Till had grabbed her waist or wolf-whistled at her when he came into her store to buy some gum. (According to Till’s cousin who was with him at the store that day, he did in fact whistle at her.) But at the trial she testified that Till had grabbed her and made lewd comments to her. She later said – long after her husband and his brother had been acquitted – that her testimony was false, and that she couldn’t remember what had actually happened. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/8 "2023-04-28T20:40:05Z")
Screen capture from the first season of “America in Color” on the Smithsonian Channel: [![](http://pics.imcdb.org/2517/aslongasheswhite2939.jpg) ](http://pics.imcdb.org/2517/aslongasheswhite2939.jpg) Note the filename on mouseover. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/9 "2023-04-30T10:43:21Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > Bryant told her husband that Till had grabbed her waist or wolf-whistled at her when he came into her store to buy some gum We simply do not know the details. Some accounts say the woman did not tell her husband, but that a man who had been playing checkers on the porch of the store did in exchange for fifty cents in store credit. But there is no need to get hung up on details. We know there was a murder. We know who did it. We know they got away with it. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2023, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/10 "2023-07-23T18:06:48Z")
> **[Biden will designate a national monument honoring Emmett Till and his mother](https://www.npr.org/2023/07/23/1189664409/emmett-till-national-monuments-biden)** > > The national monument, at sites in Illinois and Mississippi, will help protect places that tell Till's story, as well as reflect the activism of his mother. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2025, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emmett-tills-accuser-dies/983282/11 "2025-08-23T13:06:09Z")
> **[US releases Emmett Till investigation records ahead of 70th anniversary of...](https://apnews.com/article/emmett-till-records-released-0b879b20870b730bfd6566d257d6a6e7)** > > The federal government has released thousands of pages of records on the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till. > Many of the records have never been seen by the public. They include reports, telegrams, case files and correspondences and documents from the NAACP, the White House, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, among others.