There was always an arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant Donham for her role in the 14-year-old Chicago black boy’s lynching.
It’s been sitting in a Mississippi courthouse since August 1955. “The arrest warrant against Donham was publicized at the time, but the Leflore county sheriff told reporters he did not want to ‘bother’ the woman since she had two young children to care for,” the Guardian says (read story here).
Now that a search of old county records has produced the never-rescinded warrant, Till’s family want it served, and want Donham prosecuted. But legal experts say that’s probably not possible.
Donham, now 88 and living in South Carolina, lied about Till making a pass at her, and pointed him out to the killers. That arguably makes her an accessory to his murder. At the time of Till’s murder, a local judge thought there was probable cause to arrest her, and approved the warrant.
The two killers, one of them Donham’s then-husband, kidnapped and tortured Till then dumped his body in a river. They were acquitted in a state trial, and both are now long dead (spit on their graves here and here), leaving Donham as the only person who can ever be punished for the lynching.
Till’s death was not in totally in vain. It helped launch the civil rights movement. But Bryant, Milam, and Donham deserve zero credit for improving the lot of African-Americans. That was the last and least they intended.
Update (8/9/22): A Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Donham; see story here.
