LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On the steps of the Kentucky Capitol, people heard a renewed effort to hold a Kentucky woman accountable for her part in a decades-old lynching case in Mississippi.
In August, new details came to light detailing how a grand jury refused to indict the woman whose accusations led to the death of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955.
Carolyn Donham, 87, is the white woman who accused the black teenager of “improper advances.”
Till was visiting family in Mississippi when he was abducted, killed and tossed in a river.
Now, Donham said she “didn’t know what would happen” to the teenager.
In June 2022, nearly 70 years later, a warrant for the arrest for Bryant was found in a courthouse basement dated 1955.
It was for the charge of kidnapping and “never served.”
“She was a part of the plot, the plan to kill Emmett Till,” said John Barnett, the founder of True Healing Under God. “He was 14 years old. I don’t know if he whistled, they say he whistled. Maybe he stole some candy. But it doesn’t justify the blood that was lost that day.”
The activist group stood on the steps of the state capitol and called attention to the unserved warrant.
“This fight is not a quick fight – took awhile for George Floyd to get his settlement – it took a long time for King to get us back on the bus almost a whole year. So it’s a long battle because it’s a 70-year-old warrant,” Barnett said.
Louisville-chapter NAACP President Raoul Cunningham said the image of Till lying in his open casket, brutally beaten, sent shock waves.
"It sent a sense of anger, sadness and the notion that we as a people were not going to take that type of treatment," Cunningham said. "Although it's been 67 years since Emmett Till was murdered, there should be justice for Emmett Till and his family."
Cunningham was only 12 when Till was murdered, but he remembers the movement that was spurred - a movement he joined himself.
Now, he's glad to see other activists picking up the torch and still calling for justice.
"He was murdered. There ought to be a price," he said.
Cunningham also said protests are necessary, but said the ultimate way to call for justice is to vote.
The group out of North Carolina said they will be in Bowling Green on Sept. 17 for a larger press conference near where they believe Donham is living.
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