Actress Taraji P. Henson is set to portray Mamie Till-Mobley, the late mother of slain Chicago 14 year old and profound symbol of the Civil Rights Movement in the tentatively titled film, The Emmett Till Story. She is expected to collaborate with and also serve as a producer for the project alongside noted director John Singleton.
In the summer of 1955, Till supposedly whistled at a white woman in Mississippi. He was barbarically tortured, beaten, and shot to death and his murderers were later acquitted by an all-white jury in just over an hour.
HBO also has plans for a six-episode mini-series, with Jay Z, Will Smith, and Casey Affleck among the executive producersbased on Devery Andersons 2015 Till biography.
Mamie Till famously chose to give her son an open-casket funeral after the young teen was brutally murdered.
The Body Of Emmett Till | 100 Photos | TIME
Emmett Till was brutally killed in the summer of 1955. At his funeral, his mother forced the world to reckon with the brutality of American racism. Subscribe to TIME http://po.st/SubscribeTIME In this unprecedented exploration of 100 photographs that shaped the human experience, TIME goes behind each spectacular image to reveal how and why it changed the course of history.
Jet magazine and The Chicago Reader published photos of his body, providing photographic evidence of the violence that White supremacists inflicted on African Americans.
Stay tuned as more develops.
