Emmett Till is gone. The quest for justice lives on. – New York Daily News

Imagine being a mother forced to identify your 14-year-old child using the ring he wore because his body was mutilated beyond recognition. Imagine that his murderers beat him bloody, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and tied a 75-pound cotton gin fan to his neck before throwing him in Tallahatchie River.

I cant imagine that, nor what it was like to be Black in Money, Miss., in 1955. Im white. Had I been alive then, working the counter of a country store as Carolyn Bryant, a white woman, then 21, had done, any accusation I might have made, however false or exaggerated, could have easily sent depraved assailants into a murderous rage upon a child.

Emmett Till, a Chicago native, had been visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta when a trip to the store to buy two cents worth of bubble gum led to Bryants accusations that he made ugly remarks and whistled after her when he left. Days after the encounter, her husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.W. Milam drove a pickup truck to the house where Emmett was staying 50 feet off a gravel road. They parked under cedar and persimmon trees and proceeded to pound on the door, flashlight and .45 Colt gun in hand. It was 2 a.m. Emmetts great-uncle Moses (Preacher) Wright, then 64, tried to persuade them against abducting the child, but the assailants were on a mission.

The lynching that followed was not the first blood-soaked racist stain upon our country. But Emmetts story helped ignite a burgeoning civil rights movement when his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral.

Let the world see what has happened. Mamie Till-Mobleys words rang powerful. Fifty thousand mourners attended the boys funeral, and Jet magazine published a photo of Emmetts pulverized remains.

She rose to the occasion like no other person could have done at that time, reflects Deborah Watts, Emmetts cousin and co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation. [She] tried to turn her pain into power to change the trajectory of racism in America.

FILE - Mamie Till Mobley weeps at her son's funeral on Sept. 6, 1955, in Chicago. The mother of Emmett Till insisted that her son's body be displayed in an open casket forcing the nation to see the brutality directed at Blacks in the South at the time. (Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

Watts used to spend time with Mamie Till-Mobley, cutting one of her wonderful cakes or eating her sweet potato pie. Theyd talk about things, because there were witnesses to the kidnapping that would come to the family home, and Emmetts mother often tried to clarify what really happened to her son.

There had been a poor excuse of a trial. In September 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted by a white male jury who deliberated a mere 67 minutes. The defense attorney had counseled the jury that their white ancestors would turn over in their graves, if they found the men guilty. Im sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men.

How brazen and confident in ones sense of supreme whiteness! A few months later, Look magazine, published an interview with the killers, in which they disclosed the horrific details around their abduction and murder of Emmett.

The Fifth Amendment double jeopardy clause was the only thing that stood between them and another trial for his death, explains Paula Johnson, professor of law, and co-director of the Cold Case Justice Initiative at Syracuse University. That means that no one has been held legally responsible for the death of Emmett Till which was such a notorious, and open and unabashed crime in this nations history that to the extent that people who were involved and never had to answer for it are still alive, then there really is no reason why they should not be held to answer, she states.

There is no statute of limitations on murder. Now, accountability is within reach, and must be fiercely pursued with no less vigor and commitment than has been directed toward fugitive Nazis, however old and feeble, or unobtrusive they might present.

On June 21, Deborah and her daughter, Teri Watts, foundation members, and a documentarian unearthed a 1955 warrant charging kidnapping, and commanding the taking (arrest) of J.W. Milam, Roy Bryant and Mrs. Roy (Carolyn) Bryant.

What this warrant indicates for us is that those two most certainly did not act alone, Johnson tells us. The fact that her name is on the warrant means that there was probable cause to believe that Carolyn Bryant had some role in the death of Emmett Till.

Bryant and Milam died years back of cancer. But Carolyn Bryant Donham, now 88, is alive, and was seen publicly last week for the first time in 20 years, in Kentucky.

Why wasnt she arrested?

The warrant reads that police couldnt find her in the county. Furthermore, a sheriff said he did not bother to serve the warrant because Carolyn Bryant had two young children at home.

A 14-year-old Black youths life had been taken because of some alleged insult to a white woman and she isnt held accountable for that because she has children? Johnson calls out the racist absurdity. Well Mamie Till-Mobley had a child as well, and we see what happened to him. Deborah Watts take: Someone who was an accomplice in a kidnapping or a murderwould that be acceptable to you? It shouldnt have been acceptable in 55, and it is definitely not acceptable in 2022.

The family has fiercely and relentlessly persevered over the decades. Mamie Till-Mobley spent a lifetime channeling hope and passion into purpose, until her death in 2003.

Attempts to bring justice have been pursued in the past, with disappointing outcomes. In 2004, the Justice Department reopened an investigation. But in 2007, a grand jury in Leflore County, Miss., refused to issue a new indictment against Carolyn Bryant Donham, 73 at the time.

In 2017, the DOJ reopened the investigation again, but closed it. There have been discrepancies about what she said or didnt say. Historian and Duke scholar Timothy Tyson quoted her as admitting that her earlier accusations of lewd behavior were not true. Later, Carolyn Bryant Donham recanted that.

We need to know the truth. If she was an accessory, we need to know what role she played. Did her account, or any assistance she may have provided, lead to a conspiratorial demand, as Johnson puts it? Is Carolyn Bryant Donham culpable in the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till?

It would be unpopular among many to roust an old woman whos reportedly legally blind and receiving hospice care at home. The passage of time will create other challenges, plus there are jurisdiction hurdles. The DA office in Mississippi would need to request cooperation from his counterparts to serve the warrant for extradition purposes, Johnson explains. Meanwhile, on July 17, in a flagrant dereliction of duty, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch declared no intention to prosecute Carolyn Bryant Donham. This, despite the recent find of her unpublished memoir, in which she wrote that men had dragged Emmett to her kitchen in the night for identification.

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Those charged with the duty to execute the warrant must be held to full account as well. Failure to step up, as dictated by law and the tenets of a civil and humane society, renders them entirely complicit as so often has been the case at the state and federal levels of law enforcement institutions, with regard to justice around racially motivated murders of Black people.

Not unlike prosecuting elderly Nazis for crimes committed decades ago, its critical to bring cases to trial when heinous and hateful crimes have been executed, most especially barbaric acts spawned from racism, fueled by perverse codes of honor that had a way of compelling certain white menfolk toward depravity.

While sometimes difficult to overcome prosecutors decisions, Johnson explains that abuse of discretion claims can be brought. The DOJ will have to look at this for federal jurisdiction, based on possible civil rights violations committed by Donham as part of a conspiracy to deprive Emmett of his civil rights. Doable, given that the arrest warrant provides a basis to subpoena Donham and obtain further information based on the existence of probable cause.

We saw such involvement at the federal level on Aug. 4, when U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced federal charges against four police officers for violation of civil rights related to the killing of Breonna Taylor; in this case, based on falsifying information used to obtain the search warrant that led to her tragic death.

Carolyn Bryant Donhams role must be fully investigated. She must be held to full account for any culpability around the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Louis Till. If she has nothing to hide, let her step out of the shadows to set the record straight.

We are traumatized people trying to seek out justice, Deborah Watts wants us to know. Now we just need the law enforcement and the authorities, the DA in Mississippi, to be willing and to have the courage to move this forward and hold her accountable for her roleIts painful that its taken this long. Were not asking for something that shouldnt be done. And no, were not forgetting. And no, were not moving on.

Hetherman is a freelance journalist.

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Emmett Till is gone. The quest for justice lives on. - New York Daily News