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With Carolyn Bryant’s Death, Where is Justice for Emmett Till?

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Last year President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law — legislation that had previously been killed more than 200 times. The passage was a hard-fought win, but the activist William Barber III reminded us that no law, “verdict or election can bring about the racial reckoning America needs after 400 years of building systems that have rested upon White supremacy.”
The post With Carolyn Bryant’s Death, Where is Justice for Emmett Till? first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

3 years ago

June 5, 2023

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By Liz Courquet-Lesaulnier | Word in Black

Emmet Till deserved to grow old.

If he hadn’t been murdered in Money, Mississippi, on August 28, 1955 — if he had lived long enough to develop wrinkles and gray hair, and bounce his children, grandchildren, and possibly his great-grandchildren on his knees — he might have celebrated his 82nd birthday this July.

His mother, Mamie Till-Mobely, who died in 2003, might have had many happy years with her beloved son. She wouldn’t have gone to her grave with horrifying memories of his brutalized body. She wouldn’t have had to make the courageous decision to leave his casket open. There would have been no reason for her to say these heartbreaking words: “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.”

But thanks to the need of White men in the Jim Crow South to preserve the purity and honor of 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant — the White woman who falsely accused Till of making sexual advances at her — Emmet Till never made it past 14.

Carolyn Bryant — known later in life as Carolyn Bryant Donham — lived to the ripe old age of 88 without ever being held accountable for her part in Till’s murder.

As reporter Ed Pilkington wrote in the Guardian in 2020 about the people involved in Till’s murder, “Not a day has been spent in jail nor a penny paid in compensation.”

That was still true on April 25, the day Carolyn Bryant died.

A Last Chance for Justice

On the morning of April 27, before most people knew about Bryant’s death, the social media accounts of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation — the nonprofit founded in 2005 by Till’s family posted black squares to their various pages.

The squares were, perhaps, an acknowledgment that with Bryant’s death, the family’s last chance for justice for Emmett Till — for anyone involved in his murder to be held accountable — was now gone.

“This is not a celebratory moment,” Keith A. Beauchamp, the filmmaker who co-wrote and produced the 2022 feature film “Till,” explained on his Facebook page.

“Since 1955, law enforcement and local officials have allowed Bryant – Donham to evade justice. It’s infuriating to come to the realization that the American judicial system has failed us yet again.”

In his post, Beauchamp also acknowledged, “The question that everyone should be asking is how and who allowed this predator to get away?

Like Till’s family, Beauchamp has long pursued truth and justice for the murdered teen.

Beauchamp spent 10 years making the 2005 documentary, “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till.”

The evidence he uncovered was instrumental to the U.S. government reopening its investigation of the case in 2004 — before the film was released. However, no charges ended up being brought, and the investigation closed in 2007.

The FBI reopened the case after the January 2017 publication of the book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” by historian and author Timothy B. Tyson.

Tyson spent an unprecedented amount of time with Bryant, and he detailed in the book that she admitted to him that she had lied.

Tyson wrote that Bryant said: “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.” However, he was unable to produce an audio recording of that specific conversation — he only had a handwritten note of Bryant’s remarks. The Till case was closed again in 2021.

An Unserved Arrest Warrant

Bryant’s death came just two weeks after the April 13 announcement that Ricky Banks, the sheriff in Leflore County, Mississippi, had declined to serve a recently discovered 1955 arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant.

Why wasn’t the warrant served in 1955? The then-sheriff decided he didn’t want to “bother” Bryant because she was a mother.

This unserved warrant was found in June 2022 at the Leflore County Courthouse by five members of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation.

Despite the discovery of the warrant, in August 2022, a Leflore County grand jury refused to indict Bryant.

“It is evident that the outstanding warrant was not ever intended to be served in 1955 and obviously not intended to be served in 2022,” Deborah Watts, another cousin of Till and a co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, wrote in a statement at the time.

“This is a missed opportunity to break the cycle of protection that has been afforded to White women, specifically to Carolyn Holloway Bryant Donham, Mrs. Roy Bryant, the last living known accomplice, who has been allowed to escape full accountability and judicial judgment in this case. No family should ever have to endure this pain and injustice for this long,” Watts wrote.

In February 2023, another of Till’s cousins, Patricia Sterling, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to compel Banks to serve the warrant.

“But for Carolyn Bryant falsely claiming to her husband that Emmett Till assaulted her, Emmett would not have been murdered,” the lawsuit stated.

Bryant is widely believed to have identified Till to her husband, Roy Bryant, and J.W. Milam, Roy Bryant’s half-brother. It’s also believed that Carolyn Bryant helped the two men locate Till so that they could abduct him from his bed in his great-uncle’s home.

“It was Carolyn Bryant’s lie that sent Roy Bryant and JW Milam into a rage, which resulted in the mutilation of Emmett Till’s body into unrecognizable condition,” Sterling’s lawsuit stated.

However, on April 13, Banks’ attorney, Charles J. Swayze III, filed court papers stating, “Since the Grand Jury found no probable cause to indict Donham on the charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, there is no probable cause to support the 1955 Arrest Warrant.” Swayze also asked for Sterling’s federal lawsuit to be dismissed.

Despite this setback, the Till family didn’t give up.

In an April 26 Facebook post, Watts clarified that far from the discovery of the warrant being a surprise — as some news outlets had reported — she and the other foundation members were “intentionally Searching for the Unserved Warrant.”

Watts wrote that they found the warrant “within an hour and a half” of looking for it — raising the question of why it had not previously been discovered in the decades before.

Watts subsequently demanded “that Mississippi authorities that are responsible, do their jobs and #ServeTheWarrant now!”

Little did Watts know when she uploaded her post that Carolyn Bryant had died the day before.

We Can Never Forget

In 2003, one week before she died, Mamie Till Mobeley told Beauchamp to “tell Emmett’s story until man’s consciousness is risen, only then there will be justice for Emmett Till!”

Till’s “case is so relevant today because he is the Anne Frank for Black America,” Beauchamp wrote me in an email in 2015.

“Just like our Jewish brothers and sisters, we must continue to tell Emmett’s story over and over again.”

The details of what followed after Till’s abduction are horrific, but given the persistent attacks on teaching the truth about Black history — about American history — they bear repeating.

We know that Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam drove Till to a barn, stripped him naked, and tortured and beat him beyond recognition. A passerby reported hearing the boy crying out, “Mama, please save me.”

As the historian Tyson wrote, “Affronted White supremacy drove every blow.”

The men went on to gouge out one of Till’s eyes, shoot him in the head, and use barbed wire to tie his body to a 75-pound cotton gin. They then threw his body into the Tallahatchie River and took Till’s clothes and shoes home to burn them.

Despite the weight of the cotton gin, Till floated eight miles downstream. Once discovered, his body was only identifiable because of a silver ring on his pinky finger.

During Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam’s trial, Carolyn Bryant sat coolly beside her husband.

When called to testify, she claimed that Till had grabbed her hand and waist, asking her, “How about a date, baby?” She claimed he’d made sexually explicit comments and said he’d been with other White women.

Both men were acquitted in Sept. 1956 by an all-White jury.

We only know the details of Till’s murder because in 1956, Look magazine paid Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam $4,000 to spill the gruesome circumstances.

The article describes 5′ 4″ tall Till as looking “like a man” — a reminder of how from Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin to Tamir Rice, the combination of adultification and racism gets Black children killed.

Milam told the magazine that when a Black man “gets close to mentioning sex with a White woman, he’s tired o’ livin’. I’m likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights.”

He went on to say he told Till, “I’m going to make an example of you—just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.”

Double jeopardy laws protected both men from being tried again for Till’s murder.

A Steep Price for Civil Rights

Surely, the actions of Mamie Till-Mobley weren’t what either man expected. The widely circulated photograph of Till’s mutilated body in the open casket requested by Till-Mobley shocked the world and galvanized the civil rights movement.

Her description of her son’s body is what no mother should ever have to see:

“I saw his tongue had been choked out and it was lying down on his chin. I saw that this eye was out, and it was lying about midway to cheek. I looked at this eye, and it was gone. I looked at the bridge of his nose, and it looked like someone had taken a meat chopper and chopped it. I looked at his teeth, because I took so much pride in his teeth. His teeth were the prettiest things I’d ever seen in my life, I thought. And I only saw two. Where are the rest of them? They had just been knocked out. And I was looking at his ears. His ears were like mine. They curled. They’re not attached, and they curled up the same way mine are. And I didn’t see the ear. Where’s the ear? And that’s when I discovered a hole about here, and I could see daylight on the other side. I said, now was it necessary to shoot him? If that’s a bullet hole, was that necessary? And I also discovered that they had taken an axe, and they had gone straight down across his head, and the face and the back of the head were separate.”

When you read Till-Mobley’s words, you understand why on Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks had Emmett Till on her mind when she refused to go to the back of the bus — which led to her arrest and sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

That, in turn, led to Martin Luther King Jr. becoming the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association — activism that catapulted him onto a national stage.

In 2005, the Rev. Al Sharpton told Democracy Now that because of Till-Mobley’s choice to open her son’s casket, “because she put the picture of this young man’s body on the conscience of America, she might have saved thousands of young Black men and young Black women’s lives.”

Last year President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law — legislation that had previously been killed more than 200 times. The passage was a hard-fought win, but the activist William Barber III reminded us that no law, “verdict or election can bring about the racial reckoning America needs after 400 years of building systems that have rested upon White supremacy.”

And what a steep price has been paid for our freedoms by Till and his family.

Another of his cousins, Thelma Wright Edwards, told the Guardian in 2020 that she didn’t actually want Bryant in jail due to the woman’s age.

However, “I do want Miss Bryant to admit she lied,” she said. “Stand up and tell the truth. We can’t move on until we hear it from her mouth.”

With Bryant’s death, that longed-for moment of accountability — of truth — will never come.

This piece was originally published by Word in Black.

The post With Carolyn Bryant’s death, where is justice for Emmett Till? appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers .

The post With Carolyn Bryant’s Death, Where is Justice for Emmett Till? first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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OP-ED: The Dream Cannot be Realized Without Financial Freedom

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Dr. King spent the final chapter of his life pushing the country to face economic injustice. The day before he was tragically assassinated, Dr. King stood with sanitation workers in Memphis to call for economic equality. He helped launch the Poor People’s Campaign because he knew freedom hollowed out by poverty is not freedom at all. Dr. King kept pushing America to match its promises with practical pathways.

Published

5 days ago

January 19, 2026

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By Ben Crump

We honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. each January with speeches, service projects, and by reciting powerful quotes we know by heart.

But too many Black families will spend much of MLK Day the same way they spend most Mondays.

With the gas tank hovering near empty, hoping the car can go until the next paycheck arrives. With a prescription waiting at the pharmacy counter because they cannot afford the cost.

With a paycheck that has to stretch further than what seems possible.

Dr. King understood that true dignity means being able to afford and build a good life. In one of his clearest reminders, he asked what it means to “eat at an integrated lunch counter” if you cannot “buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee.”

That question still carries weight for many. Personal freedom will not be achieved without financial freedom.

Dr. King spent the final chapter of his life pushing the country to face economic injustice. The day before he was tragically assassinated, Dr. King stood with sanitation workers in Memphis to call for economic equality. He helped launch the Poor People’s Campaign because he knew freedom hollowed out by poverty is not freedom at all. Dr. King kept pushing America to match its promises with practical pathways.

That is the part of his legacy we should sit with this MLK Day.

This work has never been more important or needed. The cost of groceries, rent, and childcare have become an increased burden. And many families go from stable to scrambling with just one unexpected expense.

These realities are on display in a recent national survey commissioned by DreamFi, echoing what so many families already feel so deeply. More than one in four respondents told us they used check-cashing services in the past year. This finding makes it clear that too many households still need simpler and more accessible options for moving money.

The survey also shows how unexpected expenses impact families. Only 41% of Black respondents said they could cover a $1,000 emergency, compared with 56% of white respondents. When a tire blows out, when a child gets sick, when hours get cut, the question is not theoretical. The question is immediate and the impact is real.

We must shine a light on this struggle and work to equip families with tools to build better futures. We must recognize Dr. King’s wisdom and acknowledge that financial stability is a civil rights issue, because financial instability limits the ability to have choices.

The survey also found hope that can guide how we move forward.

Black families are not turning away from the idea of building stability. In fact, they are reaching for it. In the survey, 79% of Black respondents said they sought out financial education in the past six months. Ours is a community hungry for tools and a fair shot at creating a better tomorrow.

So, what does it mean to honor Dr. King right now?

It means we get practical.

It means we expand access to clear, trustworthy financial education that respects people’s time and speaks to real solutions. It means we support savings pathways that help families prepare for emergencies before emergencies arrive. It means we encourage options that make routine transactions easier and less costly, so a family is not paying extra simply to manage their own money.

Most of all, it means we stop treating financial instability as normal. Because normal is not the same as acceptable.

Dr. King asked America to make its promises real. The best way to honor him now is to provide opportunities for everyone to achieve Dr. King’s dream.

Ben Crump is a nationally renowned civil rights attorney and founder of Ben Crump Law. Known as “Black America’s attorney general,” he has represented families in some of the most high-profile civil rights cases of our time, including those of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, and Ahmaud Arbery. He is also co-founder of DreamFi, a financial empowerment platform focused on helping everyday people build stability through practical resources.

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Four Stolen Futures: Will H-E-B Do The Right Thing?

BLACKPRESSUSA – An 18-wheeler carrying H-E-B merchandise struck a disabled car on US 87 near Dalhart, resulting in the deaths of four young Texas women. Dashcam footage shows their hazard lights flashing before impact. As H-E-B points to subsidiary distance, families wait for accountability.

Published

6 days ago

January 18, 2026

Oakland Post

By TotallyRandie
Social Media Correspondent, BlackPressUSA

Eighty thousand pounds of steel doesn’t just collide—it obliterates. While corporate lawyers hide behind the sterile jargon of liability and subsidiaries, four Houston families are left haunted by viral footage of a tragedy that should never have happened. On November 5, 2025, a stretch of US 87 became a crime scene of corporate negligence, claiming four vibrant Texan futures in a heartbeat.

The dashcam footage is a nightmare in real-time. A black Nissan Altima, hazards blinking in a desperate plea for space, crawls along the right lane near Dalhart. The four young women inside did exactly what we are taught to do during an emergency: slowed down and put on hazards. They were then met by an 18-wheeler hauling H-E-B merchandise. The truck plowed into them at full speed—no brakes, no swerve, no mercy.

The lives of Breanna Brantley, Taylor White, Myunique Johnson, and Lakeisha Brown were not just lost; they were stolen. To understand the gravity of this loss, you have to realize these women were just starting their lives.

Breanna Brantley (30): A woman entering the prime of her life, a new chapter of wisdom and growth.
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Taylor White (27): A wanderlust traveler and the “glue” for her younger siblings; she was their primary mother figure.
Myunique Johnson (20): Affectionately known as Mimi. Her life was just starting to bloom
Lakeisha Brown (19): A basketball standout set for Blinn College this spring—the beacon of hope meant to rewrite her family’s financial history.

In Texas, political math often attempts to cap the value of a human life, but the $250,000 ceiling suggested by current tort reform is an insult to these families. Breanna, Taylor, Myunique, and Lakeisha were more than just Black women; they were daughters, sisters, and athletes whose lives were abruptly taken away. They deserved milestones—graduations, weddings, and the simple right to grow old—not to be reduced to an apology for a “tragic loss.”

While the dashcam footage suggests an open-and-shut case, Attorney Rodney Jones of Rodney Jones Law Group P.C. revealed in our exclusive interview that reality is far more tangled. The road to justice could be a long, drawn-out process depending on how HEB decides to handle the case.

“This is a senseless accident that could have easily been prevented,” Jones says. “They had the right to possess that lane, and that truck driver had the responsibility to pay attention”. H-E-B is a Texas institution, but its response has triggered deep public outcry. While issuing an apology, the company quickly distanced itself, claiming the carrier wasn’t a “direct” H-E-B truck—despite hauling H-E-B products and being operated by Parkway, a known H-E-B subsidiary.

The driver, Guadalupe Villarreal, reportedly has a history of speeding and prior rear-end accidents. Jones is firm: “I’m looking strictly at his ability to be behind that 18-wheeler. This is a simple matter of a grossly negligent driver and the companies that put him on the road being held accountable.”

“H-E-B can’t bring them back, but they can make sure this never happens again,” Jones argues. “There is no price for a life, but there must be a price for negligence. It’s time for H-E-B to stop pointing fingers and start vetting their drivers properly to protect the public.”

While the public demands criminal charges, Jones notes that the legal wheel turns slowly. However, in the civil arena, H-E-B’s silence is deafening; the company has yet to contact the families directly.

“We desire a speedy resolution so we don’t have to drag this out,” Jones concluded. “H-E-B is a beloved chain here in Texas. Hopefully, they come to the table to resolve this fast. I feel like the longer they make these families wait for closure, the more it should cost.”

The ball is in H-E-B’s court. Will they live up to the Texas-strong values they advertise, or will they let a legal loophole define their legacy?

Bell @TotallyRandie
Multimedia Correspondent & Digital Creator
BlackPressUsa.Com/TotallyRandie.com /Stylemagazine.com

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Travis Scott Teaches Us How to Give Forward

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE It’s not just about the gift under the tree in December; it’s about the skills, the confidence, and the opportunities provided in the months leading up to it.

Published

1 week ago

January 16, 2026

Oakland Post

By TotallyRandie

The fourth quarter of the year is often dubbed “giving season,” and for good reason. As October fades into November, the cultural zeitgeist shifts toward gratitude and the spirit of the holidays. For most, this means making a yearly donation to a local food bank or participating in a toy drive for the less fortunate. But for Houston’s own Travis Scott, “giving season” isn’t a seasonal trend—it’s a sophisticated, year-round blueprint for community empowerment.

Since launching the Cactus Jack Foundation in November 2020 alongside his sister, Jordan Webster, Scott has moved beyond the traditional celebrity check-writing model. While the world watches his every move on global stages, his foundation has been quietly and consistently pouring into the soil that raised him. Whether it’s supporting SWAC baseball athletes or funding the Waymon Webster Scholarship Fund for HBCU students, the mission is clear: provide the resources for the next generation to not just survive, but to lead.

From the Streets to the Stars

This past fall, the foundation took its most ambitious leap yet. In October 2025, Cactus Jack partnered with Space Center Houston—the official visitor center of NASA Johnson Space Center—to launch a first-of-its-kind STEM incubator.

The program was specifically designed for students within the Houston Independent School District (HISD), many of whom come from underserved communities where a career in aerospace often feels like a light-year away. For eight weeks, these middle schoolers weren’t just reading about science; they were living it.

Through a mix of virtual workshops and hands-on sessions at the Cact.Us Design Center and TXRX Labs, students were paired with actual NASA engineers. They weren’t tasked with busywork; they were challenged to solve real-world problems of space habitation, including:

Lunar Water Filtration: Designing systems to purify water on the moon.
Space Habitats: Creating structures designed for food preservation in extreme environments.
Robotics: Developing rovers capable of navigating uneven lunar terrain.

The Power of Being Present

The program culminated in a private showcase at Space Center Houston this past December. Standing alongside retired NASA astronaut and Chief Science Officer Megan McArthur, Scott watched as HISD students presented high-fidelity prototypes. In that room, the disparity usually associated with these neighborhoods vanished, replaced by the technical language of CAD modeling and systems thinking.

But the work didn’t stop at the laboratory. The 6th Annual “Winter Wonderland Toy Drive” at Texas Southern University took place the very next day, showcasing the foundation’s dual-threat approach to philanthropy. While the STEM program looked toward the future, the toy drive took care of the present, putting smiles on the faces of thousands of Houston families with toys, groceries, and essential goods.

“Opportunities like this are being offered to help enrich our students’ lives and inspire them to pursue careers in fields where they can not only thrive but also bring back solutions to their communities.” — Travis Scott

More Than a Headline

Critics and social media skeptics often tweet that “Travis Scott is everywhere but Houston.” The data and the faces of the students at Space Center Houston suggest otherwise. While his music may be a global export, his legacy is being built brick by brick (and circuit by circuit) in HISD classrooms.

By bridging the gap between hip-hop culture and NASA’s high-tech corridors, the Cactus Jack Foundation is teaching us a vital lesson in giving forward. It’s not just about the gift under the tree in December; it’s about the skills, the confidence, and the “out of this world” opportunities provided in the months leading up to it.

Travis Scott may be a global icon, but in Houston, he’s becoming something much more important: a catalyst for the next generation of innovators.