Emmett Till’s next of kin are demanding that Mississippi police still execute a 1955 arrest warrant. They filed a federal lawsuit this week. Till, a fourteen-year-old black boy, was severely beaten and murdered in August 1955 by two white men. As a result, he became one of the first faces of the American civil rights movement.
Till was from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi. A white woman accused him of whistling at her. She later stated that he also grabbed her by the waist. Her husband and his half-brother kidnapped Till, assaulted him, shot him dead and dumped his body in a river.
Till’s mother decided to keep his coffin open during the funeral. The images of the boy’s badly scarred face shocked the US.
In 2022, an arrest warrant surfaced for Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman Till accused at the time. That warrant was never issued, because the local sheriff did not want to bother the woman with it.
The two men were arrested, but they were acquitted by a white jury. They later pleaded guilty in an interview. In a book that came out in 2017, Bryant Donham said that her statement was partly a lie.
Till’s next of kin went to a judge in Mississippi in August. They still want to force the arrest of Bryant Donham. The judge did not agree. According to CNN the family therefore filed a federal lawsuit this week.
The murder of Emmett Till is currently in the spotlight because of the Hollywood film Tillwhich came out last fall.
