INDIANAPOLIS — “The crowds are gone and this delta town is back to its silent, solid life that is based on cotton and the proposition that a whole race of men was created to pick it.”
Those were the words of Indianapolis native Dan Wakefield, writing nearly 67 years ago as a reporter covering the trial of the two men accused of murdering of 14-year-old Emmett Till.
Roy Bryant and his half-brother, JW Milam, stood trial. Bryant’s wife, Carolyn, testified at the trial. She accused Till, who was from Chicago but visiting family in Mississippi at the time, of making a pass at her.
“I think all the reporters there understood, we all understood, that the outcome of the trial was pre-determined, that no jury of white men in Mississippi would convict these two white men,” Wakefield explained.
They didn’t.
Bryant and Milam went free, but later admitted in an interview with Look Magazine that they killed Till. They couldn’t be retried because of double jeopardy laws.
“I think the whole country is still on a quest, of sorts, for justice and for justice being done,” said Wakefield.
Till’s family is renewing their calls for justice after discovering an arrest warrant in the case that was never served.
The name on the warrant is Mrs. Roy Bryant, who is now in her 80’s and goes by the last name Donham.
Till’s cousins recently searched the basement of a Mississippi courthouse and found the unserved arrest warrant with Mrs. Bryant’s name on it.
Wakefield remembers Bryant in court.
“She was what the family wanted her to be, demure, quiet and also I would say, very confident - almost arrogant - as the men were,” Wakefield recalled.
This past December, the U.S. Department of Justice closed an investigation into Till’s murder after federal investigators reportedly could not prove Bryant had lied in her testimony about Till.
Federal investigators had reopened the case, reportedly after a book was published in which Bryant appeared to recant her claims against Till. But when federal investigators interviewed her, Bryant reportedly denied she had lied about what happened.
“I think she should be the one to give the rest of the story and tell the rest of the story,” said Mayor Johnnie B. Thomas, founder of the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center.
Thomas has some deeply personal reasons for wanting to know exactly what happened.
“They always said that black men was involved, and I’d like to know, including my father, was allegedly involved. He said he wasn’t. She would know,” said Thomas, speaking of Bryant.
Thomas said his father, Henry Lee Loggins, who died in 2009, worked for JW Milam, and although Loggins was never charged for any involvement in Till’s murder, allegations against him have lingered.
“I’d love to have answers," said Thomas. "I need answers."
Whether those answers come in the wake of the discovery of the arrest warrant is the question.
“They’ve always known there was a warrant issued, but never served. Of course, serving it now, I don’t know what it would do, with the case closed,” Thomas said.