Despite her son’s disfigured face and body, Mamie insisted on having an open-casket funeral to show everyone what his boy went through at the hands of his murderers. The two Biennial curators met with Parker Bright, and listened to his concerns. “When you’re standing in front of the painting, it’s a powerful experience—deeply sad, mournful.” The museum has been fully supportive of the curators and the artist, and the painting will remain on view throughout the exhibition. When I went back again a few days later, the studio floor was littered with discarded paintbrushes, dozens of them, some still oozing paint—I got bright orange on one of my shoes.

Donham, who currently resides in North Carolina, has not yet commented publicly on the recent discovery of the arrest warrant. Milam, Roy debbie cortese Bryant’s half-brother, were tried for Till’s murder but were quickly acquitted by an all-white jury. The arrest warrant for Donham, identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant,” was dated Aug. 29, 1955.

• Months later, they admitted to their crimes in a magazine interview.
• Mose Wright and a young man named Willie Reed, who testified to seeing Milam enter the shed from which screams and blows were heard, both testified in front of the grand jury.
• Only a privileged few hail from socially engaged families committed to exposing their children to black art, history, and cultural traditions.
• His mother insisted that her son be displayed in a glass-topped casket, so the world could see his beaten body.
• According to historian Stephen J. Whitfield, a specific brand of xenophobia in the South was particularly strong in Mississippi.

In response, NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins characterized the incident as a lynching and said that Mississippi was trying to maintain white supremacy through murder. She was misquoted; it was reported as “Mississippi is going to pay for this.” One of the other boys ran across the street to tell Curtis Jones what happened in the store.

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It was acknowledged that Till whistled while Bryant was going to her car. However, it is disputed whether Till whistled toward Bryant or toward a checkers game that was occurring just across the street. At the age of six, Emmett contracted polio, which left him with a persistent stutter. Mamie and Emmett moved to Detroit, where she met and married “Pink” Bradley in 1951. Emmett preferred living in Chicago, so he returned there to live with his grandmother; his mother and stepfather rejoined him later that year. After the marriage dissolved in 1952, “Pink” Bradley returned alone to Detroit.

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Milam invaded Emmett Till’s great-uncle’s home and abducted the boy at gunpoint. They then severely beat him and gouged out one of his eyes before taking him to the banks of the Tallahatchie River, where they killed him with a single gunshot to the head. Afterward they tied Till’s body to a large metal fan and dumped him into the river.

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This isn’t the first Whitney Biennial to face allegations of racism. A 2014 exhibition came under fire for including a piece about the life of a fictional black artist, Donelle Woolford, made by a white, male artist, Joe Scanlan. Woolford was incorrectly listed on the museum’s roster as a participant in the Biennial, despite being a fictional character created by Scanlan. The gesture was especially insulting due to the fact that just eight non-fictional black artists were featured in the show, out of a total of 103. On August 28, 1955, a 14-year-old African American boy was abducted from a relative’s home and tortured and killed by white men. His gruesome death was one of the cases that sparked the civil rights movement in Mississippi.

Milam and Bryant were taken into custody that day; both gave statements that they had taken Till from Wright’s home but freed him at the country store after Carolyn Bryant could not identify Till as the “right one” from the incident on Wednesday evening. “I will see if I can get a copy of the warrant and get with the DA and get their opinion on it,” Banks told the AP. Richardson’s office would be responsible for handling a potential prosecution if the warrant for Donham’s arrest is served. PEOPLE is part of the Dotdash Meredith publishing family.

They noted that only Milam’s flashlight had been in use that night, and no other lights in the house were turned on. Milam and Bryant had identified themselves to Wright the evening they took Till; Wright said he had only seen Milam clearly. It may have been the first time in the South that a black man had testified to the guilt of a white man in court—and lived. Racial tensions increased after the United States Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to end segregation in public education, which it ruled unconstitutional. Many segregationists believed the ruling would lead to interracial dating and marriage.