Lamar Bryant is the second son of Carolyn Bryant, the white woman whose false accusation led to the brutal lynching of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy, in Mississippi in 1955.
The murder of Till sparked outrage and galvanized the civil rights movement in the United States.
But what happened to Lamar Bryant and his family after the infamous trial that acquitted his father and uncle of the crime?
Here is what we know about his life and legacy.
Where is Roy Bryant Jr?
Lamar Bryant has an older brother, Roy Bryant Jr., who was named after his father. Roy was born in 1952, three years before Till’s murder.
He grew up in a family that was ostracized and shunned by both whites and blacks in Mississippi.
After his parents divorced, he moved with his mother to Greenville, Mississippi, where he attended high school.
Lamar Bryant later married and had two children.
Lamar worked as a mechanic and a welder, but he also had trouble with the law.
He was arrested several times for fraud, theft, and assault. He died of cancer in 1996 at the age of 44.
What was the cause of death for Roy Bryant?
Roy Bryant, Lamar’s father, was one of the two men who kidnapped, tortured, and killed Emmett Till in 1955.
He and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, confessed to the crime in a magazine interview after they were acquitted by an all-white jury.
They claimed they acted in defense of Carolyn’s honor and white supremacy.
Roy Bryant lost his grocery store after a boycott by the black community and struggled to find work.
He moved around Mississippi and Texas, working as a truck driver, a mechanic, and a welder.
Roy remarried twice and had two more children. He died of cancer in 1994 at the age of 63.
Does Carolyn Bryant have a child?
Carolyn Bryant had two children with Roy Bryant: Lamar and Roy Jr.
She also had a daughter with her second husband, David Donham, whom she married in 1957.
Carolyn divorced Donham in 1979 and married again in 1984.
She changed her name several times and lived a secretive life in Mississippi and Arkansas.
Carolyn Bryant avoided public attention and refused to talk about the Till case until she met author Timothy Tyson in 2008.
She told him that she lied about Till’s alleged advances and expressed remorse for his death.
Carolyn Bryant said she could not remember what happened at the store that day and that nothing Till did could justify what happened to him.
She also said she felt sorry for Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who had lost her son in such a horrific way.
What did Emmett Till say?
Emmett Till was a cheerful and outgoing boy from Chicago who visited his relatives in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955.
He went to Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market with his cousins and friends to buy some candy after picking cotton in the fields.
There he encountered Carolyn Bryant, who was working at the store while her husband was away.
According to some accounts, Till whistled at her or said something flirtatious or disrespectful to her as he left the store.
According to others, he merely said \”bye-bye\” or stuttered while trying to ask for bubble gum.
Whatever he said or did, it was enough to provoke Carolyn’s wrath and fear.
She later told her husband and brother-in-law that Till had grabbed her, made lewd remarks, and threatened her.
This led them to abduct Till from his uncle’s house at night and brutally murder him.
They dumped his body in the Tallahatchie River with a cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire.
His mutilated corpse was found three days later and identified by his mother, who insisted on having an open-casket funeral to show the world what they had done to her son.
Conclusion
Lamar Bryant is the son of a woman who changed history by lying about Emmett Till’s actions and causing his death.
His family suffered the consequences of their involvement in one of the most notorious cases of racial violence in American history.
They lived in fear, shame, poverty, and isolation for decades. Lamar Bryant’s current whereabouts are unknown, but he is likely still haunted by the legacy of his mother’s lie and his father’s crime.
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