Chamblee54

You finish a post, but there is one more question. You ask Google, or better yet Duck Duck Go, and you find yourself falling down a TMI rabbit hole. This happened the other day with a post about Carolyn Bryant Donhem. If you read this post first, you will better understand the post below.
In 2017, The Blood of Emmett Till came out. Author “Timothy Tyson … alleged during a book-promotion tour that Carolyn Bryant-Donham had, during an interview with him nearly a decade earlier, recanted the account that she had provided under oath in proceedings related to her husband’s trial.” This announcement got a lot of publicity for the book.
Vanity Fair did its duty by reporting “In August of that year, while visiting a Deep South that he didn’t understand, Till had entered a store to buy two cents worth of bubble gum.” There were calls for the prosecution of CBD, even after the DOJ said that the statute of limitations had run out on anything CBD could be tried for. Finally, CBD died April 23, 2023. “Her death marks the last chance for anyone to be held accountable for a kidnapping and brutal murder that shocked the world.”
My question: exactly what did CDB retract? Was it the courtroom testimony, where she said that ELT accosted her physically. This testimony differed from a statement she gave to an attorney, after her husband’s arrest. The thing is, this testimony came after the murder. Many people say that Roy Bryant heard about the whistling incident from a third party, not his wife. The post-mortem testimony would not have led to the murder.
The Emmett Till lynching has seen more than its share of liars. Is Tim Tyson one of them? An article in Mississippi Today, written by Jerry Mitchell, has more information. “Tyson’s 2017 book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” lit the bomb that exploded around the world with this claim: The white woman at the center of the Emmett Till case, Carolyn Bryant Donham, had admitted she lied when she testified that he had grabbed her around the waist and uttered obscenities.”
The MT article had a few zesty quotes. “For Till’s cousin, Ollie Gordon, the revelation sounded like a ruse. She saw no logic, she said, in Donham sharing such information with someone she hardly knew. “I thought, ‘Oh, here we go. This man wants to sell his book,’” she said. “He knew if he put that lie out, that was going to help him sell the book.”
Mitchell met with Tyson after he met with CBD. “He told me her story mirrored her testimony, where she claimed Till had mauled her. · “You know she lied, don’t you?” I asked. · The statement surprised him, and afterward, I mailed him a copy of the statement she had made to the defense lawyer, where she mentioned nothing about Till grabbing her or talking about having sex with her.”
Vanity Fair had a tidbit that turned up in a lot of stories about the murder. “Four months after their irreversible acquittal, Milam and Bryant admitted their guilt to Look magazine, receiving a fee of some $3,000 for their story.” (Roy Bryant, husband of Carolyn, and his brother JW Milam, were acquitted for their role in the killing.) The Look magazine story is “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi”, by William Bradford Huie. TSSOAKIM took a bit of digging to find. There are a few stories debunking TSSAAKIM.
“Huie, author of numerous books that sold millions, had a reputation, described by David Halberstam, as a “roguish journalist” who was “considered more talented than respectable by many of his peers.” Huie’s honesty in reporting the Till case has been called into question by two of Till’s cousins, Simeon Wright (Moses Wright’s youngest son), and Wheeler Parker, who say Huie never talked with them.”
Mississippi Today has a banger article about TSSAAKIM, The writer and killers ‘stole the story of Emmett Till from his mother and family’. Bill Huie wrote a memo, and forgot to destroy it. “Huie wrote in his memo, “There appears no doubt that much of Mrs. Bryant’s testimony regarding physical contact with the Negro youth or alleged ‘obscene remarks’ was fabricated — probably at the suggestion of one of the lawyers.”
“Keith Beauchamp, a producer for the 2022 “Till” film … said Huie was far more passionate about making a movie than he was about telling the truth. “I am ‘hot’ in Hollywood right now,” Huie bragged to an editor. “This Mississippi story, with proper releases, is a good bet for $100,000,” the modern-day equivalent of more than $1.1 million. Sharing a “secret 15%” with the killers is “a damn good way for Milam and Bryant to make crime pay,” he wrote.”
Buie got releases from Bryant and Milam to do the story. There were, however, more men in the killing party. Buie wrote them out of the story, and got creative to do so.
“Not long after the sun rose the next morning, Willie Reed was walking across a plantation near Drew. He testified at trial that he saw four white men in the cab of a 1955 Chevy pickup with three Black men holding “a black boy” in the back of the truck. …Reed also testified that he heard “a whole lot of licks” in the barn and someone hollering, “Oh.””
“Here is the most incredible portion of the story,” Huie wrote in his memo. “Milam and [Roy] Bryant insist — and apparently they are truthful — that no one else was with them; that the two of them sat in the cab; that they did not tie the youth; that they did nothing more than menace him with their pistols; yet he remained ‘impudent’ and ‘full of fight’ all during the subsequent five-hour ordeal of driving around and whipping — and he never once tried to run!”
“The killers insisted that Till stayed the entire time in the back of the pickup, despite no one holding him there. “He wasn’t afraid of them!” Huie wrote in Look. “He was tough as they were. He didn’t think they had the guts to kill him.” … “Huie can’t write the story he wants to write, unless he eliminates Willie Reed and the other Black witnesses from the story.” … Huie had to concoct an “unafraid Till” to get the magazine to publish his article. “Had Till been scared, Huie’s narrative would have required extra men to guard him in the back of the truck,” he said. “But with the extra men, Look would not publish the story.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture is “Untitled”. It is in a collection of photographs that John Vachon took in May 1942. The locations were in Nebraska and Colorado. ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah