The family of Emmett Till has appealed to Mississippi’s top prosecutor and federal authorities to pursue criminal charges against the woman whose accusations against him led to his 1955 murder, a striking reflection of Jim Crow-era violence that galvanised the Civil Rights movement.
Deborah Watts, one of Till’s cousins and a co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, said the organisation has collected more than 250,000 signatures petitioning for murder charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham, a white woman who accused the Black 14-year-old boy of harassing her in 1955, and among the last-living witnesses to his killing.
