Carolyn Bryant Donham’s error-filled attempt to absolve herself of guilt in the 1955 kidnapping and brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till should come as little shock to those who have followed this story for years.
Read MoreThe Justice Department has closed the books on the lynching of Emmett Till, whose face — young and unblemished, then swollen and monstrous — has come to symbolize the unpunished killings of Black Americans.
Whatever hope there was for justice was dashed this week when the department pinned the blame on its inability to confirm a book’s explosive 2017 claim that the White woman at the center of the case recanted her story about Till’s actions that fateful day in Money, Mississippi.