OLD RACIST DIES
The lynching of Emmett Till feels so distant, yet still all too recent. Till would be 81 years old if he were alive today. And the woman who catalysed his death ambled on until days ago. Chicago native Till had been visiting relatives in Mississippi when Carolyn Bryant Donham, a white grocery store co-owner, accused him of whistling at her while in her shop. She spread the word to her then-husband, and he and his half-brother brutally beat and shot Till, and dumped his remains in the Tallahatchie River. Till’s bloated, disfigured corpse was discovered three days later, and his mother held firm in holding an open-casket funeral to show the world what racism does.
Till’s murder turbocharged the civil rights movement, and directly inspired Rosa Parks not to give up her seat. Further fueling the anger was that no one involved in Till’s murder saw justice. Both his murderers were acquitted by an all-white jury, only confessing to the crime years later once double jeopardy protected them. Occasional attempts to bring Bryant Donham to justice over the decades got nowhere, and she ultimately lived the quiet, long life that Till was denied.
There better be an afterlife.
In recent years Bryant Donham’s whitewashing autobiography, planned for a 2036 release, was leaked to the press. News surfaced last year that she was in hospice with lung cancer, leading to her long-overdue death aged 88. A smattering of points we can all celebrate go to nine teams, most pertinently taking Day in the Death to the top of the scoreboard.
Carolyn Bryant Donham
23 July 1944 – 25 April 2023, aged 88
9 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀 6 POINTS)