HOPE FOR JUSTICE

Government Reopens Investigation Into Emmett Till Murder

Black teen was brutally lynched in 1955.

The federal government has reopened its investigation into the lynching of Emmett Till, the black teenager whose brutal murder in Mississippi shocked the world in 1955. The Justice Department told Congress in a report in March it is reinvestigating Till’s slaying in Money, Mississippi, after receiving “new information.” The case was closed in 2007 with authorities saying the suspects were dead. The report, sent annually to lawmakers under a law that bears Till’s name, does not indicate what the new information might be but it was issued in late March following the publication last year of “The Blood of Emmett Till,” a book that says a key figure in the case acknowledged lying about events preceding the slaying of the 14-year-old youth from Chicago. The book quotes a white woman, Carolyn Donham, as acknowledging during a 2008 interview that she wasn’t truthful when she testified that Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances at a store.