By Rabia Iclal Turan
WASHINGTON (AA) - Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose false accusations led to the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till in the US state of Mississippi, died in Louisiana, according to reports Thursday. She was 88.
Till was lynched in 1955 after Donham falsely accused him of making unwanted sexual advances on her.
Carolyn Bryant, who, along with her husband Roy, owned the grocery store where she claimed Till's impropriety took place, has acknowledged that her accusations against Till were false. However, her acknowledgment came decades too late.
Till's lynching provided a catalyst for the civil rights movement while Donham was never charged with the crime.
Malik Shabazz, from Black Lawyers for Justice, released a statement on Thursday, saying that Donham’s legacy “will be one of dishonesty and injustice.”
“Carolyn Bryant’s death brings a conclusion to a painful chapter for the Emmett Till family and for Black peoples in America. The tragic part about Bryant’s death was that she was never held accountable for her role in the death of young Emmett Till, who is the martyr for the Civil Rights Movement,” said the statement quoted by CNN.
The Black teenager was abducted from his great-uncle Moses Wright's home by Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, the husband and brother-in-law of Donham, according to a report by ABC News.
The two men were charged with Till's murder, but despite later confessing to the killing in a paid magazine interview, they were acquitted by an all-white jury, it said.