Deep source building and teamwork enabled AP to break news on the unearthing of the long-lost warrant for the white woman whose accusations led to the Black teen’s lynching.
“And I do not say this lightly: Holy shit.” That, from producer and Black List founder Franklin Leonard, sums up the collective reaction to the scoop by AP’s Jay Reeves and Emily Wagster Pettus: A search team had discovered the nearly 70-year-old unserved warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham.
Donham was at the center of the lynching of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black teenager whom the white woman accused of making improper advances in 1955. That unproven accusation led to Till’s abduction and grisly death, a horror that galvanized the civil rights movement.
A cotton-gin fan is presented as evidence in the trial investigating the death of 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till, in Sumner, Miss., Sept. 22, 1955. The fan had been tied with barbed wire around the neck of 14-year-old Emmett Till when his body was found in the Tallahatchie River near the Delta community of Money, Miss., August 31, 1955.
AP Photo
Carolyn Bryant (later known as Carolyn Bryant Donham), rests her head on the shoulder of her husband, defendant Roy Bryant, after she testified in the Emmett Till murder case in Sumner, Miss., Sept. 22, 1955.
AP Photo
Deborah Watts, cousin of Emmett Till, points out a 1950s photograph of her cousin and his mother, Mamie Till Mobley), in Jackson, Miss., Aug. 27, 2015, during events marking the 60th anniversary of the abduction and lynching of 14-year-old Till.
AP Photo / ROgelio V. SOLIS
All that remains of what was once Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Miss., are vine-covered brick walls, July 14, 2021. Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black teen, was kidnapped and lynched in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, at the family’s store.
AP Photo / ROgelio V. SOLIS
Reeves, AP’s Birmingham, Alabama, correspondent and a member of AP’s race and ethnicity team, had reported earlier this year that relatives and activists were still seeking the long-lost warrant in hope of moving forward with a case against Donham, who was accused of kidnapping Till along with then-husband Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam but never taken into custody.
Chances of finding the original warrant seemed remote until the well-sourced Reeves got a tip — the document had been discovered in boxes of old records in the basement of a courthouse in Leflore County, Mississippi, where the abduction occurred. He confirmed it the next day with the court clerk and contacted Wagster Pettus, the statehouse reporter in Jackson, Mississippi.
In photo at left, Carolyn Bryant (later know as Carolyn Bryant Donham), sits second from right, with her husband, defendant Roy Bryant, far right, co-defandant J.W. Milam, far left, and Milam’s wife in a courtroom in Sumner, Miss., Sept. 23, 1955. Roy Bryant and his half-brother Milam were charged with murder but acquitted in the kidnapping and torture slaying of 14-year-old Black teen Emmett Till; Carolyn Bryant had accused Till of improper advances. A team searching the basement of a Mississippi courthouse in June 2022 for evidence has found the unserved 1955 warrant charging Carolyn Bryant in Till’s kidnapping. At right, Deborah Watts, cousin of Emmett Till, is interviewed in Jackson, Miss., Aug. 27, 2015, about the abduction and killing of her cousin. With the 2022 discovery of the unserved warrant, relatives of Till want authorities to finally arrest Carolyn Bryant Donham nearly 70 years later.
AP Photo (left); AP / ROGELIO V. SOLIS
Wagster Pettus promptly broke the news of the warrant’s discovery to the local sheriff himself, who said he would consult prosecutors about next steps. She also reached out to a county prosecutor who declined comment but cited the Justice Department’s decision last year to close its investigation of the Till case without additional charges. Combining their reporting, Reeves and Wagster Pettus talked with a University of Mississippi law professor who said a warrant from 1955 almost certainly wouldn't be acceptable before a court now, but with new evidence, the old warrant could be an important steppingstone toward new charges.
Donham, now in her 80s and most recently living in North Carolina, has not commented publicly on calls for her prosecution. But while the fate of the case against her is far from certain, it’s undeniable that this story from two veteran AP Deep South reporters made waves.
The story was used by more than 700 AP customers and a number of major outlets, including The Washington Post, Politico and NBC News, either used AP’s version or quoted AP in their own pieces. The story also played well on AP News, with most of the traffic coming from Facebook and Twitter, where it was among AP’s most-engaged tweets in June.
For breaking news on one of the country’s most notorious civil rights cases, underscoring how the legacy of grotesque racial injustice is not a relic of some distant past, Reeves and Wagster Pettus share this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
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