JACKSON, Miss. – The FBI is once again investigating the grisly murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy whose abduction lit a fire under the civil rights movement in 1955. And even after 63 years, the news couldn't come soon enough for Emmett's relatives. "We want the process to work, and we want justice to prevail for Emmett," Deborah Watts, Emmett's cousin, told USA TODAY. "This cannot just be forgotten." Wheeler Parker, who was with Till that fateful night, said he wants to see justice for his cousin. “That would be the biggest Christmas present,” he said. Till, who was black, was abducted Aug. 28, 1955, three days after Carolyn Donham, a white 21-year-old shopkeeper in the town of Money, said the 14-year-old grabbed and wolf-whistled at her. The battered body of Till, nicknamed "Bobo," was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River. The viciousness of the killing rocked the nation, and the woman's then-husband and another man were charged with murder. Both were acquitted by an all-white jury that year. The Justice Department said in a statement Thursday that it was reopening the investigation "after receiving new information" it did not detail. The decision was revealed to Congress in a February report and was first reported by the Associated Press. "Because it is an active investigation, the department cannot provide any additional information at this time," the department said Thursday. Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, made sure her son's casket was left open for the viewing so the public could see how badly he had been beaten. Tens of thousands of African-Americans paid their respects. "Mamie Till’s decision to allow African-American media outlets to display her son’s battered body was one of the critical events that galvanized African-Americans to fight to end America’s racial dictatorship through the Civil Rights movement," said Alvin Tillery, a political science professor and director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University. More:Emmett Till eyewitness dies; saw 1955 abduction of his cousin Emmett Till's death made news last year with publication of "The Blood of Emmett Till." The book, written by Timothy B. Tyson, quotes Donham admitting in 2008 that she wasn't telling the truth when she made the claims. Donham, now in her 80s, lives in North Carolina. Watts, founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, said the family had hoped the book would lead to a "vigorous" investigation – and possibly charges against Donham. "We always understood that she had lied," Watts said. USA TODAY was unable to contact Donham. The Associated Press said a man who answered her door said Donham would not comment. Four months after the widely publicized trial, Look magazine published an account of the killing it said it obtained from Donham's then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his brother, J.W. Milam. In the article, the men admit beating Till and tossing him in the river, weighed down with a 74-pound cotton gin fan. Milam told the magazine the men wanted to beat and scare Till, not kill him. But when he could not be frightened, they decided to kill him, Milam said. "What else could we do?" Milam told the magazine. "... He's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him." Milam died in 1980, Bryant in 1994. That might leave only Donham to face charges. Kevin Borgeson, a professor of criminal justice at Salem State University, says concerns about the statute of limitations could be resolved with a charge of obstruction of justice. "Depending on the type of crime, the statute of limitations on obstruction can be waived," he said. If she did lie, "she took the investigation where it wouldn't have gone if she had just been honest." The federal government reopened the case in 2004 but closed it in 2007 with no further charges filed. The Justice Department's February report was required under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Reauthorization Act of 2016. The bill reauthorized investigation and prosecution of civil rights violations that occurred before 1970, expanded powers to include crime in the 1970s, required that families be kept abreast of developments and demanded an annual report on the investigations to Congress. Simeon Wright, who said he was a witness to Till's abduction, died in September. He said he was there when Till wolf-whistled at Bryant's wife at the store. Wright, in his book "Simeon's Story," says that days later, on Aug. 28, 1955, Wright and Till were sleeping when Milam and Bryant entered with guns. He said his mother begged the men not to take Till, even offering them money. "They had come for Bobo," Wright wrote. "No begging, pleading or payment was going to stop them." The men took Till away, and Wright never saw him again. "I must have stayed in the bed for hours, petrified," Wright wrote. Contributing: Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Clarion Ledger<doc-sep>More than a decade after closing its investigation into the lynching of Emmett Till, a black teen whose brutal murder in 1955 served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement, the Department of Justice says it is looking into the case once again. On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that the DOJ had reopened its investigation into Till’s murder, according to a letter sent to Congress earlier this year. The report noted that the DOJ had moved to open the investigation in light of “new information,” but did not specify what that information was. The DOJ declined Vox’s request for comment, noting that it does not discuss active investigations. For some 60 years, Till’s death has served as one of the most prominent examples of the horrors lynching inflicted on black people in the decades after slavery. Historians have paid close attention to his case; the white men accused of his murder, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, confessed to murdering Till months after a jury acquitted them. News of the reopened investigation — itself the product of a federal cold case act bearing Till’s name — comes as some grapple with how to best acknowledge the racial demons of America’s past, and with how they continue to affect its present. In recent years, activists, scholars, and journalists have asserted that Till’s case in particular remains relevant today, arguing that as America continues to deal with issues like racial profiling, police violence, and mass incarceration, the crimes of the Jim Crow era aren’t as distant as time suggests. Till’s murder reignited the civil rights movement In 1955, 14-year-old Till left Chicago to spend the summer with relatives near Money, Mississippi. A few days into that visit, Till went to a country store and encountered a white woman named Carolyn Bryant, who alleged that Till grabbed her and whistled at her. Days later, the woman’s husband, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam showed up at the home of Till’s relative, and kidnapped the boy. Till’s mutilated body — beaten, shot, and weighed down with a 74-pound cotton gin fan — was found in the Tallahatchie River soon after. Till’s death attracted national and international attention when the boy’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, demanded that his casket be left open during his funeral. Images of his body would further galvanize black activists across the country fighting against segregation and Jim Crow. But Till’s death did not affect how a jury of all white men handled the trial of Bryant and Milam. Both men were acquitted in 1955 after a brief deliberation. Months later, they admitted to killing Till in a magazine article, but they could not be retried. Both men are now deceased. In the decades since, Till’s death hasn’t faded from the public consciousness. Historians have continued to examine the case for insight into how Till died and whether other people were involved. The federal government opened an investigation into Till’s death in 2004, citing “renewed interest” in the case and new information gleaned from scholars and journalists. The investigation was later closed because the statute of limitations had expired; in 2007, a Mississippi jury declined to issue any new indictments in the case. In 2017, after a decade of inaction on the case, things changed when historian Timothy Tyson published The Blood of Emmett Till. In that book, Tyson revealed that in 2007, Carolyn Bryant — now known as Carolyn Donham — admitted to lying about Till in 1955. She had initially been set to testify at the trial of Bryant and Milam, but her testimony was ruled inadmissible by the court. Even so, the allegations against Till have long been viewed as the catalyst for the boy’s murder. “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she told Tyson. Donham’s confession prompted Till’s family, as well as Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush, to lobby Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reopen the investigation into his death. Tyson has since confirmed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation reached out to him about the conversation with Donham last year. “I am glad to see the federal government following through on this request,” Rush said in a statement on Thursday. “This case is not only critically important for the role it played in sparking the Civil Rights movement, but so that Emmett and his family receive the justice that is owed to them.” The announcement of the reopened investigation comes with some skepticism News of the reopened investigation into Till’s lynching comes amid heightened media attention to racism. The past several weeks have seen a wave of noteworthy racial profiling incidents where white people have called police on people of color for innocuous actions like mowing a neighbor’s lawn and taking a nap in a college residence hall’s common room. Racial justice activists continue to call attention to the ways police violence disproportionately affects black and brown communities. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation that would establish a federal anti-lynching law, as well as legislation that would mandate the release and review of government records relating to unsolved criminal civil rights cases. But in the hours since the announcement, some have raised a different concern, one that focuses on the DOJ itself. The investigation is taking place under the Trump administration, which has been heavily criticized for its policy agenda and its effects on communities of color. Much of that criticism has been focused directly at the Justice Department, with critics noting that Jeff Sessions’s criminal justice agenda would increase incarceration at the federal level and disproportionately affect minorities. “Sessions’s Justice Department has a credibility problem with sizable segments of the American public when it comes to proving his commitment to finding justice for people of color,” the Washington Post’s Eugene Scott notes, pointing to the attorney general’s move to roll back Obama-era police reforms. Trump has attempted to use some criminal justice matters — such as the posthumous pardon of boxer Jack Johnson in May — to boost his profile with black voters.<doc-sep>The US government has reopened the investigation into the killing of black teenager Emmett Till, a 14-year-old who was slain in after allegedly flirting with a white woman. Six decades after he was abducted, mutilated, shot and his body thrown into the Tallahatchie River in Money, Mississippi, the Justice Department (JoD) revealed to Congress it was reopening the investigation after receiving “new information”. It is unclear what the new information is, but the report sent to Congress by the DoJ followed the publication last year of The Blood of Emmett Till, a book that said a witness to the case admitted lying about events that preceded the killing of the youngster from Chicago, who was visiting family. Recommended Emmett Till memorial vandalised for second time in two months “The Till case has been re-opened by DOJ based upon the discovery of new information,” says the report, which was sent in March. “Because the matter is ongoing, the department can provide no further information about the current investigation.” Following the 1955 killing of the teenager, the boy’s mother insisted that at his funeral service his body be laid in an open casket so that people – an especially the world’s media – could witness the damage inflicted upon his face and body. The DoJ declined to comment about the new information it had received on Thursday. However, Jerry Mitchell, a veteran reporter with the Jackson-based Clarion-Ledger who has covered many to the investigations and prosecutions of civil rights-era crimes, said he believed the decision to reopen the case followed the publication of the book, by researcher Timothy Tyson. ✕ Donald Trump refuses to condemn KKK endorsement In it, Mr Tyson, a scholar at Duke University in North Carolina, quotes a white woman, Carolyn Donham, as acknowledging during a 2008 interview that she was not truthful when she testified that the teenager had grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances at her in a store. Two white men, Ms Donham’s then-husband Roy Bryant, and his half-brother JW Milam, were charged with murder but acquitted. The men later confessed to the crime in a magazine interview, but were not retried. Both are now dead. The Associated Press said Ms Donham, who turns 84 this month, lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. A man who came to the door at her residence declined to comment about the FBI reopening the investigation, the news agency said. “We don’t want to talk to you,” the man said before going back inside. Mr Mitchell said he believed the case of Mr Till continued to resonate in a way that some cases from that time did not. “I think it was the first of the cases from the modern civil right era to crash into the public consciousness,” he told The Independent. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok.<doc-sep>On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. In a CNN Exclusive, two men who were with King when he was killed, Reverend Jesse Jackson and former Ambassador Andrew Young, return to that balcony, the first time they have tighter since 1968, to remember their friend 50 years later and to share little-known details of the moment King was killed. Victor Blackwell reports. FILE - This undated photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old black Chicago boy, who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at a white woman in Mississippi. The federal government has reopened its investigation into the slaying of Till, the black teenager whose brutal killing in Mississippi helped inspire the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago. (AP Photo, File) Correction: Earlier versions of this story mistakenly indicated Carolyn Bryant has died. (CNN) — The investigation of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, barbarous even in an era in which blacks in the South were subjected to untold viciousness, has been reopened based on “new information,” according to a US Justice Department report to Congress. The 1955 slaying was listed in a March report among “activities” the department was pursuing under the 2007 unsolved civil rights crime act that bears Emmett’s name. The act paves the way for the department to “expeditiously investigate” unsolved pre-1980 civil rights murders. AP An undated photo of Emmett Louis Till, who was savagely killed in Mississippi at age 14. “Several interested parties” asked the Justice Department in 2004 whether any surviving suspects could be prosecuted. After reviewing available information, the department determined that the statute of limitations prevented any federal prosecution, according to the report. Three years later, a Mississippi grand jury declined to issue new charges. “The Till case has been reopened by DOJ based upon the discovery of new information,” the department said in March. It did not elaborate. The department declined to comment on the matter. The murder and acquittal Known as “Bobo” to those who loved him, Emmett’s savage murder jolted a nation, spurring it to action on civil rights. Gruesome photos of the boy’s mutilated body spread across the globe, lending jarring visuals to the stories of violence and discrimination coming out of the South. AP Hundreds gather outside a Chicago church as pallbearers carry the casket of Emmett Till. Ninety-five days after the attack, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Emmett’s crime? He had been accused – we now know, falsely – of flirting with and making advances at then-21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, who, along with her husband, Roy, owned a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Emmett had traveled there from Chicago to visit his great-uncle, who lived in the area. Four days later, on August 28, 1955, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, rousted Emmett from his bed in the middle of the night, ordered him into the bed of a pickup and eventually beat him viciously before shooting him in the head. His murderers then strapped a 75-pound cotton gin fan to his neck with barbed wire so it would weigh him down when they tossed him in the Tallahatchie River. Not a month after the boy’s body was pulled from the river, an all-white jury acquitted Bryant and Milam of Emmett’s murder, despite eyewitnesses identifying the defendants and the men confessing to kidnapping the teen. Testifying for the defense, Carolyn Bryant offered incendiary testimony accusing Emmett of grabbing and verbally threatening her. Deliberations took barely an hour, with one juror claiming the acquittal could’ve come sooner had they not stopped to have a soda. In closing arguments, the defense team appealed to jurors’ heritage, saying their ancestors would turn in their graves if they didn’t free these fine, white men. Weeks later, a grand jury would decline to indict Bryant and Milam on kidnapping charges. The confession Bryant and Milam told a reporter the following year how they killed Emmett and dumped his body in the Tallahatchie, but because of double jeopardy laws, they couldn’t be tried again. AP In this September 1955 photo, J.W. Milam, left, and Roy Bryant, right, sit with their wives, Juanita and Carolyn, in a Sumner, Mississippi, courtroom. In a January 1956 Look magazine article, titled, “The shocking story of approved killing in Mississippi,” Bryant and Milam said they went looking for the “Chicago boy” with the initial intent of scaring him and putting him in his place. But Emmett didn’t scare. He was unflappable; he wouldn’t even “holler” when they pistol-whipped him – and that just couldn’t stand, Milam said, according to a copy of the article archived by PBS. At one point, the men recalled, Emmett told them, “You bastards, I’m not afraid of you. I’m as good as you are. I’ve ‘had’ white women. My grandmother was a white woman.” Milam said Emmett’s insolence in the face of their attempts to frighten him left them with no choice, the magazine reported: Bryant and Milam took Emmett out to the river bank and made him strip, and his final moments went like this, according to the magazine: “Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I’m no bully; I never hurt a n***** in my life. I like n*****s – in their place – I know how to work ‘em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, n*****s are gonna stay in their place. N*****s ain’t gonna vote where I live. If they did, they’d control the government. They ain’t gonna go to school with my kids. And when a n***** 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. I stood there in that shed and listened to that n***** throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind.<doc-sep>
More than 60 years have passed since 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Miss., after reportedly whistling at a white woman. His murderers were never convicted, despite testimony against them and a later confession. But on Thursday, in the latest development in a case that remains a touchstone of the civil rights movement, the Associated Press reported news found within a Justice Department report issued earlier this year: the government is reopening Till’s case, In re Emmett Till, “after receiving new information.” A reinvestigation of this case could be a rare chance to bring some closure to one of the most most vivid examples of racial violence in the South, from a moment when the U.S. was on the brink of the Civil Rights Era. Here are five things to know about the original Emmett Till case: Who Was Emmett Till? In 1955, Emmett Till, a Chicago native, was sent south to Mississippi to visit his uncle Mose Wright on a summer visit to the hometown of his mother, Mamie Till Mobley. At the time, the town of Money was controlled by a white minority and much of the black population, including Wright, were sharecroppers. Before leaving Chicago, his mother reportedly warned Till, “to be very careful… to humble himself to the extent of getting on his knees,” as TIME originally reported in the immediate wake of the case. During the trial she would tell the jurors that, as the son of a working-class family from Chicago, he wasn’t really prepared for the full brunt of the segregated south and the violence it could hold for him. What Happened to Emmett Till? On Aug. 24, 1955, Till and a few other boys went to the grocery store in Money, Miss., to buy gum. What exactly happened there remains somewhat uncertain. According to some reports, Till told the other boys during that trip that his girlfriend at home was white, which led them to dare him to ask out the white cashier, Carolyn Bryant, thinking he would never be so bold. At that time in the South, even though Till was still an adolescent, such an action would have been dangerous. Till’s friends watched him buy candy. According to some, he said something to Carolyn Bryant; others say he whistled. Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, said that she told him Till had made lewd gestures, grabbed her and whistled. He and his brother-in-law J.W. Milam decided to take the law into their own hands and drove to Wright’s house, demanding to see Till. As Wright pleaded with the men not to take him, the men forced Till into their car at gunpoint and drove him away. Three days later Till’s corpse was found in the Tallahatchie River, unrecognizable from his wounds and decomposition. He had been beaten — his head was smashed in and shot — and a 75 lb. cotton-gin fan was attached to his neck with barbed wire. Wright was only able to identify the body as his nephew from the initialed ring still on his hand. What Happened During the Original Trial? The trial began late September in Sumner, the seat of the Tallahatchie County courthouse. According to coverage by PBS, the white townspeople raised $10,000 to support the defense case of Bryant and Milam, though they probably did not need the donations to persuade the all-white, all-male jury not to convict. Members of the community resented press from northern states coming down to cover the issue — especially black journalists, who were relegated to a card table in the courtroom and berated by the local sheriff. Despite testimony from Wright, who told the jury Bryant and Milam were the ones who abducted Till from his home, and the testimony of Willie Reed, who saw Till with the men and heard his screams coming from Milam’s shed, the jury acquitted the pair after only 67 minutes of deliberation. The defense attorney for Bryant and Milam told the jury before his closing remarks that it they didn’t not free the men, “your ancestors will turn over in their grave, and I’m sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men,” according to PBS. The deliberations reportedly took an hour only because the jury had “stopped to drink pop.” Then, on Jan. 24, 1956, Look Magazine ran an exclusive account of the murder in which Bryant and Milam detailed how they killed Till.