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What Will Your Obituary Say?
Every one of us has done things that we knew were foolish at the time, or that we regretted long afterward. Sometimes, when the damage is done, we can do little to make repairs or atone. But this morning at breakfast, when my husband read the obituary of Carolyn Bryant Donham, I realized that her life and death raised many intriguing thoughts for me—about her, and my own life.
Who was Carolyn Bryant Donham?
Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making inappropriate advances toward her in 1955, has died at the age of 88 in Louisiana, according to a coroner’s report.
Nearly 68 years after Till was kidnapped, brutally tortured, murdered and then dumped into the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi, the case continues to resonate with audiences around the world because it represents an egregious example of justice denied.
Although some facts about the incident and trial are not completely clear, we do know at least two things for certain: (1) the beating and murder were instigated by charges made by Donham against Till, charges that were likely exaggerated, and (2) the two men who were charged with the crime were found not guilty after a 67-minute deliberation by an all-white, all-male jury. It appears that Till, who had let out a wolf whistle after seeing Donham (Bryant, at the time) at a grocery store, was accused by Donham of making “inappropriate advances,” although the details are unclear. And years after the trial, members of the jury “wouldn’t convict a white man of crimes against a Black child.”
* * * *
But the details of Donham’s story were not all that intrigued me. Of course, those times, filled with racial animosity, were very different from today. I began to wonder, however, about her motivation to exaggerate Till’s action (which we’ll never know); but more than that, I wondered how she felt about the lie she had told that led to Till’s death, that of a 14-year-old child. Did she realize that her accusation could lead to such deadly consequences? Did she feel a certain satisfaction about Till’s death, at least initially? Did she understand that she was an indirect participant in the crime? Did she eventually regret her own actions?
These questions led me to reflect on my own life. Have I done anything I might be remembered for that would cause me deep regret? Although I have not been complicit in a person’s death, have I acted in ways that caused deep pain to another person? I realize that spending time on regrets is likely wasted energy, particularly if I have tried to make amends. But I did recognize that I could focus on other activities in my life that could have the opposite effect that Carolyn Bryant Denham’s decision had. I could ask myself a different set of questions:
- Do I bring joy into the life of others?
- Am I mindful of the impact of my words when talking with others?
- Am I attentive to those people around me, exchanging a smile or greeting to acknowledge the moments I am spending with them?
- Do I do things that are helpful and appreciated?
- Do I express to others my appreciation of them?
- Do I make a difference to those whose lives I touch?
I am asking these questions of myself for a number of reasons, first, because I don’t want to be remembered for doing hateful or destructive things. I don’t want in any way for my obituary to read like Carolyn Bryant Donham’s. I want to make my focus in life to be a person who comforts others and who is a loving wife and friend, who demonstrates both wisdom and kindness.
I want my obituary to read that I made a difference.
How would you like to be remembered?
Published in Culture
Hearing about Carolyn Bryant Donham’s death, and reading about Emmett Till on Wikipedia, has me realizing that, regardless of how any of us live our lives, the consequences of one disastrous incident, over which we had little or no control, can determine how we’re remembered or misremembered by people who never had much experience with us.
Here’s what I mean: Was the beating and murder of Emmett Till instigated by charges made by Dunham ? (I mean: Bryant. I’ll call her Bryant, since that was her name at the time.)
No. There’s no evidence that it was. It may be true what you read, under Emmett Till on Wikipedia, about what historian Timothy Tyson has to say, which is that Roy Bryant was likely first told something about his wife’s interaction with some black kid at the store by a person who frequented the store.
In court, when her psycho husband was on trial for Till’s murder, Carolyn Bryant MAY have exaggerated when describing Till’s behavior during her interaction with him. (If Tyson can play us a tape of Bryant recanting some of her court testimony, and if it can be proven the tape wasn’t doctored, then certainly she did exaggerate.) Personally, if I had made the mistake of marrying a violent man, and if there was any chance that man would be acquitted of the murder of Till regardless of what my testimony was—even if there was just a chance he’d be convicted but would get out of prison before he was too old and decrepit to come looking for me— I’d say whatever he and his lawyer wanted me to say.
By the way, while obviously he didn’t deserve to be murdered—-never mind kidnapped, tortured and murdered—-how innocent of any wrongdoing was Till ? Was there something menacing toward Carolyn Bryant about the behavior of Till and his friends that night or day at the store?
Well, I believe Carolyn Bryant felt menaced. When Till and his friends loitered outside of the store watching people play checkers after Till made his purchase, Bryant went to a car to get a gun that was hidden under a seat. That says to me she was afraid of possibly having to deal with Till and company again, later, unarmed.
I’m going for beloved wife, mother and grandma. Agree that anything after that is icing on the cake.
Well you can choose something to be written on it. My hubby didn’t choose anything for himself but I chose for his to say My Love because I thought he would have liked to be remembered as that.
For myself I don’t really care. My ashes will be next to him and that can serve for both of us.
For me: Legal Name and rank, USAF, Year of Birth, Year of Death, Christian Cross, and possibly “Beloved wife, mother, grandmother.” The last thing will be up to my survivors. Heck, “veni, vidi, vici” would suffice only the VA only does English.
obit- not needed. Who buys newspapers. I guess I need something simple for a church funeral bulletin and a picture. My goals were met: marry a great husband, successful career, raise great kids, spoil great grandchildren.
Sounds perfect.
Thanks. As my participation in the festivities (and they really were festivities, a celebration of a long life, well lived, and much affection) was remote, I was charged with producing the handout for the order of service, and of a book of memories as told by family and friends. The memories booklet was a hoot to compose, and comprised reminiscences from Pat’s entire 99 years (I found a little story by Dad in which he talked about being taken to his mother’s bedroom to meet his brand-new baby sister on July 13, 1923), from friends and family. My favorite snippet, and the one I put on the cover, came from a lady who’s about 80 now, who was in Pat’s first class after she graduated from teaching college (1948 or so), who wrote “Miss Muffett is the first teacher I remember—and she just seemed simply a larger and more cheerful version of my classmates.”
I think Pat would have liked that as her epitaph.
That says a lot!
He never wrote one of his own, and didn’t seem to want anybody else to write one for him, so we will respect his wishes, and simply report his death.
@eb send me a piece by Ann Althouse; she quoted from Donham’s memoirs:
This was supposedly said by a 14-year old black kid in the Jim Crow south.
Yeah, I’m skeptical. On the other hand (1) Till wasn’t from the Jim Crow south. In Detroit, during the WW2 years, my mother talked her way out of a bad situation with a man who suddenly got sexually aggressive and who happened to be black. (2) Carolyn Bryant and Till may have been alone in the store at the time.
Still, on balance, I don’t believe Till did anything as extremely offensive and threatening as putting his hands on Bryant’s waist. Even if Till had been older than fourteen, he wouldn’t likely have gotten that aggressive, because there were people playing checkers, at the time, right outside the store on the porch. If the checkers players were black, they wouldn’t have wanted the trouble that could follow from the out-of-state kid getting fresh with the store owner’s wife. Till would have to have been insane to risk someone coming in the store for another soda or something when anything inappropriate he was doing could be seen.
How long, I wonder, had Till been in Money Mississippi before he walked into this store for candy ?
I don’t know about those playing checkers outside. But I did find this point in another article:
He bought 2 cents’ worth of bubble gum and left. At the door Emmett let out a loud, two-note wolf whistle directed at white 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant. His cousins were terrified: Emmett had just hit the trip wire of Southern racial fears by flirting with a white woman.
I don’t think this changes anything, but it would support his only making a wolf whistle.
Yeah, I read something sort of like that. I think Wikipedia—-Not that Wikipedia is any reliable source. I know it often isn’t.—-I think Wikipedia has Till being back outside the store on the porch before whistling, and then whistling when Bryant went toward the car from which she took the gun. One of Till’s companions claimed the whistle was only Till’s reaction to some cunning checkers move a player made. (Of course I don’t believe that’s what the whistle was.)
On the other hand, if it’s true that Till, while back outside on the porch, whistled as Bryant went toward the car from which she got the gun, my guess is Till did and/or said something inappropriate to Bryant in that brief moment, earlier, that they were alone together in the store—-something that made Bryant think it would be a good idea to go get the gun. I just don’t think Till did anything as rapey as putting his hands on Bryant’s waist, not with people just outside the store on the porch playing checkers.
But then here’s another possibility: Bryant may have gotten the gun because she felt threatened when one or two of Till’s friends came into the store after he had been alone with her in the store for a few minutes. When his friends came in, she may have become aware that suddenly there were a lot of young black males around, Till being one of them. I don’t know what life was like then, but when I was growing up it was ordinarily much older people who drifted together to play checkers. So, the checkers players on the porch may have been the usual old men Bryant expected to see there. Maybe a carload of young black males didn’t usually show up at the store.
Tim Tyson has been accused of forging the claims that Mrs. Bryant made up the whole thing. Credibly I think
https://www.mississippicir.org/perspective/carolyn-bryant-lied-about-emmett-till-did-author-tim-tyson-lie-too
A few things…
(1) I’m not surprised that Carolyn Bryant said on the witness stand that she told her husband right away about her interaction with Till. (And I’m not at all convinced she did.) Also not surprised that in her report to the police before the trial (I assume that report was made after Till was already dead.) Carolyn Bryant said Emmett Till just took her hand and, on the witness stand, she said his hands were on her waist. I think she said what she said on the witness stand in order to avoid making it more likely that she’d one day end up like Emmett Till for failing to back Roy Bryant’s lawyer’s story in court. Roy Bryant and his half brother sort of seem to have been like less intelligent versions of the psychopath Robert Mitchum channeled for his role as the villain in that movie, Cape Fear.
(2) So Roy Bryant’s half brother had a wife. And the wife seems to have been near enough by on the day of the interaction between Carolyn Bryant and Emmett Till that Bryant either did, in fact, call out to her or Bryant thought she could believably claim, in court, to have called out to her. Did this other woman get a look at Emmett Till? Couldn’t it have been this other woman, this wife of Roy Bryant’s half brother instead of Carolyn Bryant, who was the one whose voice someone in Till’s family heard coming from the car when Roy Bryant and his half brother found Emmett Till?
(3) Watching him on You Tube, I had a feeling Tim Tyson is a liar.
Kid from Chicago, though.
I think he was from Detroit. Same difference.
Why think when you can look it up?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
Oops. Sorry. My apologies.
Interesting article. Never once did I see “democrat.” Was pleased to learn the two perps later admitted they killed him, were immediately shunned by their friends, and had to move. Their horrible deed followed them and ruined them. They deserved worse.
Yeah, but there’s something ironic about it: They didn’t get themselves openly rejected by being sadistic murderers. It sounds like they got themselves openly rejected by having no class—-by making themselves and the area look stupid and horrifying in a comical, Erskine Caldwell-like way when they took the money to crow about what they did and gloat about getting away with it.
Could be. The whole saga is To Kill a Mockingbird stuff.
Well, yes and no. Yes in that the people who acquitted Roy Bryant and his half brother knew they were guilty, just as the people who convicted an innocent man in the novel, To Kill A Mocking Bird, knew the innocent man was innocent.
I don’t think Till was quite the misunderstood child people make him out to be; especially I don’t think that, now, after reading—-not carefully, but reading—-the old Look magazine article, which I did last night. I think it’s possible Till was a jerk-headed, male child who looked much older than his 14 years and who was being egged on by other teens.
Though I don’t believe all of the Look magazine article written shortly after the trial, I do believe the article must have gotten right this fact that surprises me: The checkers players on the porch, it turns out, were ALSO either teens or younger adults. Till’s party added to them consisted of 8 kids between 12 and 19 years old. Seven of the 8 in Till’s party were male, 4 of the 8 were from Chicago.It was about 7:30 in the evening when Till’s party arrived at the store.
Carolyn Bryant was 5 feet tall and weighed 103 pounds. I think she was genuinely frightened by the way Till was behaving toward her. I also think it’s more than possible she did call out to her sister in law—-I don’t think she screamed for her, as she claimed later in court, I think she called out nervously—-and the kids on the porch lied later about not hearing her. I think it’s possible two from Till’s party then came into the store to get Till because the tone of Carolyn’s voice when she called out to her sister in law told them Till’s behavior had her feeling threatened in a way they had never intended when they thought it would be funny to goad this swaggering, know-it-all, Chicago kid into finding out for himself how different from Chicago things were in Money, Mississippi.
Even though this was Mississippi in the first half of the 1950’s, I don’t think any of the kids imagined they were goading Till into risking getting himself murdered.
In Carolyn Bryant’s place that night she encountered Till, I would have felt very threatened if Till had acted flirtatious with me.