The Emmett Till case is one of, if not the most, important events of the civil rights movement in the United States. His case, like so many others from the era, galvanized minorities and African-Americans, calling global attention to the civil rights movement and the barbaric treatment of African-Americans in the Southern United States.

Though Till’s case is very well known abroad, many Americans (almost solely White Americans) still are unfamiliar with the case and its overall impact.

The Murder of Emmett Till

Emmett Till was a young boy from Chicago’s South Side, who, in August of 1955, was visiting his uncle Moses Wright. While at a store with some cousins, it is alleged that Till either whistled, touched the hand of, or flirted with a married white woman, Carolyn Bryant. A few days later, “Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, and J.W. Milam, Roy’s half brother, forced their way into Wright’s home and abducted Till at gunpoint” severely beating the fourteen-year-old before shooting him once in the head and weighing his body down in the Tallahatchie River with a metal fan attached to him with barbed wire.

In the aftermath of the murder, both Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were charged and tried for Till’s murder yet were acquitted by “an all-white, all-male jury … after four days of testimony and a little more than an hour of deliberation.” The two later sold their story to Look magazine for $4000 US dollars, admitting to having killed Till. Carolyn Bryant was never charged for her involvement in the crime even though Moses Wright testified he had heard a “lighter voice” before the white men drove off with his nephew. In 2017, Carolyn Bryant told civil rights historian Timothy Tyson that her allegations “with respect to the physical assault on her, or anything menacing or sexual, that that part isn’t true,” though the DOJ found that they could neither conclusively prove or disprove that Bryant had provided this testimony to Tyson.

Till’s murder mobilized hundreds of thousands of African-Americans across the United States to become involved in the civil rights movement and began protests against “widespread state-sponsored anti-Black violence at the hands of white people.” This event resulted in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) becoming more strongly involved in Mississippi civil rights, finding witnesses for the trial and eventually becoming more involved in civil rights in the Southern U.S. states. Till’s legacy lives on to this year, with President Biden signing into law the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act, effectively codifying lynching as a federal hate crime.

The Warrant

However, the saga of Emmett Till is not complete. A few weeks ago, in June of 2022, members of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation found a signed and unserved “warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham.” While comments could not be obtained from District Attorney Dewayne Richardson, the DA for the Fourth Circuit Court District of Mississippi, University of Mississippi law professor Ronald J. Rychlak has argued that the warrant “could be an important stepping stone toward establishing probable cause to initiate a new prosecution”; however, the 1955 warrant, “almost certainly would not pass muster before a court”.

Following this, the Till family, among others, have called for the arrest warrant to be served against Bryant.

It is still likely Carolyn Bryant could be charged from the original arrest warrant. MS Code § Title 99-1-5, which pertains to time limitations on prosecutions, states, “The passage of time shall never bar prosecution against any person for the offenses of … kidnapping …” among other criminal actions including sexual assault and murder. In this case, however, given the arrest warrant was served for Carolyn Bryant on the charge of kidnapping and there are no statutes of limitations for such a charge in Mississippi law, it is very conceivable that this warrant could be served and hold up in court against Bryant.

Seeing how Bryant now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Wake County District Attorney would need to also cooperate with the Mississippi DA in order to begin the process for extradition. Provided Richardson does push for charges against Bryant, Wake County DA Lorrin Freeman has stated she “would certainly see that she is brought to justice … To some extent, obviously, it would be inappropriate for me without actual verification and a request from that jurisdiction for me to take any action.”

While, to some, this case is seen as simple, others argue that she should not be tried on account of her age or that due to the statute of limitations, the warrant is out of date.

Conclusion

Justice has never been delivered to the Till family. There was a trial; however, the fact that the jury was comprised of all-white, all-male participants, makes it likely the trial’s decision was heavily biased at the least (if not deliberately racist as some have credibly theorized). Justice was denied to the Till family based upon racial lines. The fact that not every person involved in the crime was charged or tried for the crime, in spite of receiving warrants for their arrest, further points to the denial of justice for Till and his family.

Not only was justice denied to the family, but this acquittal showed exactly how the jury felt about minorities and African-Americans in Mississippi and the rest of the U.S. South. They thought that African-Americans and all minorities were lesser than human, that they did not deserve recognition by the courts, and that they did not deserve equal rights. This ruling denied justice to all African-Americans throughout the United States.

Given the fact that justice, in both the social and legal sense, can still be provided to the Till family, it is necessary that they not be denied this for a second time. Even if the District Attorney determines the case is not viable in terms of gaining a conviction against Bryant, this case should still be tried as it would be impressive, a legitimate show of solidarity with the African-American community, and a legitimate step in trying to right this wrong. While it would not make up for the decades of injustice against African-Americans in the U.S. South nor the hundreds of thousands (if not millions of other) miscarriages of justice, it would be a display of recommitment to civil rights by the U.S. justice system.

Alan Cunningham is a Senior Research Fellow with the think tank Quo Vademus and is a PhD student at the University of Birmingham. He is a graduate of Norwich University and the University of Texas at Austin. His areas of expertise are Latin America, Cold War history, and intelligence studies.

Suggested citation: Alan Cunningham, Belayed Justice: The Need for Justice for Emmett Till, JURIST – Professional Commentary, July 7, 2022, https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2022/07/Alan-Cunningham-Emmett-Till-warrant/.

This article was prepared for publication by Rebekah Yeager-Malkin, Deputy Commentary Managing Editor. Please direct any questions or comments to she/her/hers at commentary@jurist.org