Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose lies directly resulted in the gruesome murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, died on Tuesday. According to the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office, the 88-year-old white woman died in hospice care in Westlake, La after a long battle with cancer.
We all (should) know the story: Till was tortured and murdered by K.W. Milam and his half-brother Roy Bryant, after Bryant’s wife, Carolyn, claimed he whistled to her at a grocery store in Drew, Mississippi. At the time, flirting with a white woman was breaking societal rules. As a result, Milam and Bryant abducted Emmett and eventually killed him.
In a 2017 report from Vanity Fair, author Timothy Dyson, a Duke University senior research scholar, reveals that in 2007 Donham, at 72, admitted that she lied about Till making verbal and physical advances toward her.
Not only do we loathe people who are racist, but we hate people who lie, and as you would imagine, Black Twitter did not hold back on Donham who never paid for all the pain she caused. There were those who took a more serious route.
And there are those who took a less serious route. As Black Twitter normally does, it joked but mostly celebrated the expiration of a woman who lied about a young Black boy and was able to live a full life without any consequences.
A year ago, Till’s family was looking to prosecute her, but why not still go through with it? People are posthumously exonerated all the time. Alexander Williams was exonerated 91 years after being executed. His sister not only testified but was extremely happy with the outcome.
“I am happy. I am happy,” Susie Carter said. “There’s no way they can bring him back, but let his name be cleared of all that. He did not do it. There’s no way you can stab somebody 37 times and not have any blood on you.”