US reopens 1955 case of black boy's lynching

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON

The Donald Trump administration has reopened the case of a 14-year-old black boy whose brutal slaying over half a century ago helped to spur the civil rights movement.

Emmett Till was lynched in 1955 after a white 21-year-old woman in Mississippi falsely accused him of making unwanted sexual advances on her.

Carolyn Bryant, who along her husband, Roy, owned the grocery store where she claimed Till's impropriety took place, has since acknowledged her accusations against Till were false.

But her acknowledgement came decades too late. The 14-year-old Till was kidnapped at a relative's house shortly after Bryant made the accusations. He was taken from the home where he was staying while visiting from Chicago by Roy Bryant and his half-brother who then tied the teen up and put him in the back of his pickup truck.

Till's bloated, mutilated corpse was found four days later in a river. His mother insisted on an open-casket funeral so others could see the state of her son, and photos of Till's body added to simmering outrage.

No one was ever convicted for Till's slaying. An all-male, all-white jury acquitted Roy Bryant and his half-brother, John William Milam, of the Till's murder.

Milam and Bryant later admitted during a magazine interview that they kidnapped and then murdered Till, but were never retried.

They told Look magazine they had initially sought to scare Till, but he was unfazed.

"Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a n****r in my life. I like n****rs -- in their place -- I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, n****rs are gonna stay in their place," Milam told Look in the article, which has been archived by PBS. "When a n****r gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him."

The Justice Department acknowledged it reopened Till's case in a report it submitted to Congress in March.

The department declined to comment further when contacted by Anadolu Agency.

Both Milam and Roy Bryant have died making the focus of any possible legal action is unclear.