The woman accused of causing the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till says she didn’t identify him to his killers or want him dead, according to her unpublished memoir.
Carolyn Bryant Donham went as far as to say she was a victim just like the 14-year-old black teen, claiming her life changed after he was murdered by her husband and his half-brother.
The memoir, “I am More Than A Wolf Whistle,” was obtained by the Associated Press on Thursday and gives the most extensive recounting of the incident.
Donham recalls in the memoir that she actually tried to help Till when her husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother JW Milam brought him to her in the middle of the night for identification.
“I did not wish Emmett any harm and could not stop harm from coming to him, since I didn’t know what was planned for him,” Donham, who is white, argued in the memoir, which is written by her daughter-in-law. “I tried to protect him by telling Roy that ‘He’s not the one. That’s not him. Please take him home.’”
She also claimed in the manuscript that it was Till who actually identified himself after he was dragged from his family’s home at gunpoint.
“I have always prayed that God would bless Emmett’s family. I am truly sorry for the pain his family was caused,” she said.
And possibly surprisingly, but probably not, she goes on to say she “always felt like a victim as well as Emmett” and “paid dearly with an altered life.”
While Donham’s husband and the brother-in-law admitted that they killed the young boy after they were found not guilty at trial, it was her alleged involvement in the case that gained national attention.
As of recently, a decades-old arrest warrant against Donham for kidnapping was discovered in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse.
When Donham was 21, she accused Till, visiting Mississippi from Chicago, of making improper advances toward her, including whistling, which at that time violated the code of the Jim Crow-era South.
After the alleged encounter, she told her husband about it, which resulted in Till’s abduction, torture, and murder.
Donham is now 87 and her last known address was in Raleigh, North Carolina, the New York Post reported.
Till supporters who want her arrested, searched for her last week, and even went to a senior living site where they thought she might be.
Deborah Watts, who is a cousin of Till and heads the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, said the memoir is new evidence that shows Donham was involved in Till’s death.
“I truly believe these developments cannot be ignored by the authorities in Mississippi,” she said.
The US Department of Justice closed its investigation into Donham last year and Mississippi authorities have not confirmed if they will pursue the kidnapping charge against her.
Historian and author Timothy Tyson, of Durham, obtained a copy of the memoir from Donham during a 2008 interview with her. Although he agreed to keep it out of public view, he decided to release it following the long, lost, and overdue arrest warrant that came to light.
“The potential for an investigation was more important than the archival agreements, though those are important things,” Tyson said. “But this is probably the last chance for an indictment in this case.”
He said Donham’s claims needed to be taken with “a good-sized shovel full of salt,” referencing her assertion that Till told his eventual killers who he was.
“Two big white men with guns came and dragged him out of his aunt and great-uncle’s house at 2 a.m. in the Mississippi Delta in 1955. I do not believe for one minute that he identified himself,” Tyson said.
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