Emmit Till’s Accuser Confesses

Emmett Till was a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago who was brutally murdered by two white men in Money, Mississippi. He was killed for allegedly flirting with a white woman by the name of Carolyn Bryant. Bryant said that when Till was in her store, he grabbed her hand and made sexual advances towards her. When Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, heard of the way Till spoke to his wife he, along with his half-brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Till from his uncle’s home in the middle of the night on August 28. Bryant and Milam proceeded to beat him beyond recognition, shot him, then dumped his body in the Tallahatchie river.
When Till’s body was found, it was so swollen and disfigured that Till’s uncle, Moses Wright, could only identify him by an initialed ring that once belonged to his father. When Till’s mother, Mamie Till, saw the mutilated corpse she insisted on having an open casket funeral to show the public. She stated, “There was just no way I could describe what was in that box,” she added, “No way. [And] I just wanted the world to see.” The open casket funeral sparked the next phase of the Civil rights movement. The notorious murder made a huge impact on the nation for six decades.The crime was even compared to Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown’s death.
Emmett Till’s murderers were acquitted of his kidnap and murder in September of 1955. On January 24, 1956 “Look Magazine” published an article of Bryant and Milam confessing to the heinous crime. In the article, Bryant and Milam who are now protected by double jeopardy, went into details about how they beat him with the gun, shot him in the head, and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River with a cotton gin fan attached with barbed wire to his neck to weigh him down. Both murderers were payed $4,000 for their cooperation.
The sixty-two year-old case came back to light when Carolyn Bryant-Dunham made a confession of her own. Bryant-Dunham stated that she fabricated the most critical part of her story. Carolyn Bryant-Dunham spoke with Duke University professor, Timothy B. Tyson, in a 2007 interview for a book Tyson wrote called “The Blood of Emmett Till.” Dunham stated, “that part’s not true” about her previous claims that Till grabbed her and made lewd comments towards her.
After the interview with Bryant was revealed, Wheeler Parker, the cousin of Emmett Till, who was with him the night he was kidnapped spoke with Dailymail.com stating, ‘My family thinks she’s trying to make money but being a preacher, I think she is trying to find a way to go heaven now.’ Parker also stated that whatever her motive was she’s just happy she is finally telling the truth while other family members are upset it took her 10 years to do so.
The Blood of Emmett Till is now available for purchase, however; Carolyn Bryant-Dunham is writing a memoir of her own which will not be published until 2036.