“I want her in front of a judge and jury”: Whoopi Goldberg Wants Justice For 14 Year Old Emmett Till Who Was Lynched 70 Years Ago, Feels White Woman Who Caused It Went Scot Free For Crime
Whoopi Goldberg has finally realized her dream that was a decade in the making. The Oscar winner is one of the producers of Till, a movie about how a 14-year-old black boy Emmett Till was lynched by a group of men for an offense that he may or may not have committed.
But there is one dream of her that still remains incomplete. It is her dream to see Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman responsible for that boy’s lynching 67 years ago to be brought before the court. That is the dream she must be hoping to see fulfilled.
The story of Emmett Till
It was on 28 August 1955 that Emmett Till found himself in a grocery store in Mississippi. The boy was there to visit his relatives. But he had no idea that the visit to the grocery store would prove to be of immense cost to the 14-year-old. That is where he met Carolyn Bryant Donham, who is at the heart of the present case.
Donham, who is currently 88 years old, was 21 years old back then. And she claimed that Till had whistled at her when he came to the grocery store. To this date, there is no evidence to prove that Till had committed the crime. But the prospect of giving a black person the right to be heard was alien to the people of Mississippi back then. A life was lost.
Whoopi Goldberg wants to see Carolyn Bryant Donham before a jury
Yet, close to 7 decades since Emmett Till was lynched, the people responsible which included Donham’s husband Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, have not been brought to justice. The perpetrators were in fact acquitted by the court. Justice is hard to come by for some people, isn’t it?
And that is the very thing Whoopi Goldberg laments. Goldberg, speaking to Page Six at the New York Festival, said, “I don’t want her in jail but I want her in front of a judge and jury. I want her to admit what she did and what part she had. And then, you know, for me, that would be perfect, instead of still trying to hide what she did away.”
This is what inspired her to produce Till, which stars Jalyn Hall in the titular role, alongside Danielle Deadwyler, Frankie Faison, and Goldberg herself.
Whoopi Goldberg got funding for Till after the Black Lives Matter protest shocked the world
Goldberg also disclosed that though she and the other producers, were aiming to make the film a reality for the last decade, it was only after the death of George Floyd that their project got the necessary impetus. The ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest opened the gates to securing finances for their team. And she claimed that it was the support the movement got that paved the way for Till. She said,
“I would like to be more positive, but I think George Floyd had a lot to do with why this got made.”
Despite that, this year, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Donham for her actions. The fact that she still roams free, despite the efforts made by Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, to get justice for her only child. The movie, which is set for limited release on October 14 this year, aims to bring her story into the limelight.
Source: Page Six
