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Attorney, author and activist Malik Zulu Shabazz recently pulled up to a neighborhood said to be home to Carolyn Bryant Donham, the 87-year-old white woman who admitted to falsely claiming she was sexually assaulted by 14-year-old Black teen Emmett Till in 1955, which led to his murder by white supremacists.
The former leader of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) went live on Facebook to show his arrival at a protest in Donham’s most recently known neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. Attendees called for Donham’s arrest for her role in Till’s kidnapping and murder after a recent search of a courtroom basement in Greenwood, Miss. courthouse produced an original unserved warrant for Donham.
“Carolyn Bryant Donham … okay she’s an old white lady,” Shabazz says to someone on the street before walking down the street to join the crowd of protestors. “Come on y’all. We in the neighborhood and we got some papers to serve and we got some people to see, come on.”
The warrant identifies Donham as “Mrs. Roy Bryant” – the name of Donham’s then-husband who, along with his brother J.W. Milam kidnapped, tortured and murdered Till before throwing his body into a river. The duo was acquitted of Till’s murder by an all-white jury but confessed to the gruesome slaying later.
Till’s family has also called for Donham’s arrest and asked for the case to be reopened. “Serve it and charge her,” Till’s cousin Teri Watts told The Associated Press after the warrant was found.
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“Though she has dementia that has nothing to do with her well-being when she was in her 20s. It has nothing to do with it,” a speaker can be heard saying at the protest.
A separate clip shows the group chanting “Carolyn Bryant Donham” after being asked, “What is the name of the accused?”
Still another clip shows Shabazz interrogating a woman about Donham’s whereabouts, saying the building was “listed as her current address.”
Clips from Shabazz’s video was reposted to Twitter and people on both social media platforms weighed in. Some decried Shabazz and the NBPP calling for Donham’s arrest due to her age, but many challenged that as an excuse.
“There’s been plenty of ‘Emmett Till’ White people that were raped, tortured, murdered by blacks since then. Some couples, some elderly Whites/Eurpeans, some women,” @Catherine_LCP wrote. “But they keep dragging his name out and teaching it from 2nd grade through college as if the others did not exist.”
“I agree, but there’s something missing. The people who were caught for killing white people usually went through some form of due process without corruption once caught,” @EricsElectrons responded. “In the Emmett Till case there was corruption from start to finish & due process was practiced incorrectly.”
“So while there have been other events that were equally wrong none were as sinister from start to finish as the Emmett Till case,” @EricsElectrons added.
“She didnt care for our young, why should we care for their old?” asked Facebook user Carolyn Woods.
“If they can lock up a 101 year old man for his past crimes, she can go too!” Yung Assata commented, referring to the 101-year old Nazi guard who was convicted of being an accessory over 3,500 murders for his role in the Holocaust by a German court this year.
“If it was someone black no matter how old they would charge them no matter how long ago “murder stay murder no statue!” @my_wilde tweeted.
“The most often used deflection of White supremacists is TIME. ‘That was a long time ago, get over it!’” @KWashingtonBX tweeted. “Meanwhile justice has no statute of limitation when it comes to the grievances of other groups.”
PHOTO: Attorney, author and activist Malik Zulu Shabazz, left, at a protest in Raleigh North Carolina calling for the arrest of false Emmett Till accuser Carolyn Bryant Donham. (Photo: Screenshot / Malik Shabazz Facebook)
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