Emmett Till and To Kill a Mockingbird

[Gary]

From Wikipedia:

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman.
...
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem titled "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon" (1960). The same year Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird, in which a white attorney is committed to defending a black man named Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white woman. Lee, whose novel had a profound effect on civil rights, never publicly stated Robinson's origins. Literature professor Patrick Chura notes several compelling similarities between Till's case and that of Robinson.

Timothy Tyson is publishing a book in which he interviews the woman whom Till supposedly grabbed her and verbally threatened. Now she says she basically made the whole thing up.

... Carolyn—in 2007, at age 72—confessed that she had fabricated the most sensational part of her testimony. “That part’s not true,” she told Tyson, about her claim that Till had made verbal and physical advances on her. As for the rest of what happened that evening in the country store, she said she couldn’t remember.
...
But as Carolyn became reflective in Timothy Tyson’s presence, wistfully volunteering, “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.” She also admitted she “felt tender sorrow,” Tyson would note, “for Mamie Till-Mobley”—Emmett Till’s mother, who died in 2003 after a lifetime spent crusading for civil rights.

Full article: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/0...

Timothy Tyson's book: The Blood of Emmett Till

[Stebbins]

It's too bad this coward's late-in-life regret won't bring back Emmett Till.

[Gary]

Welfare wrote: "It's too bad this coward's late-in-life regret won't bring back Emmett Till."

Very true. There's no statute of limitations on murder, though. She's an old lady now, and I doubt there is the political will to prosecute her, but it seems to me she basically confessed to a murder. I'm sure there would be a lot of wrangling over exactly what sort of crime to charge her with (first degree, second, reckless homicide or whatever kinds of things might be called in that jurisdiction) but it's pretty clear she knew what would happen as a result of her lies and her perjury. That kind of thing is cold comfort to any family members still around, of course, but leaving it alone is part and parcel of the same social/legal processes that made it possible in the first place.