According to Variety, actress Whoopi Goldberg will produce a film about the mother of Emmett Till, Mamie Till-Mobley. Goldberg will also play Mobley’s mother in the film titled Till.
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in Drew, Mississippi, in 1955 after a white woman either told her husband that Hill had whistled at her or that he was grabbed her. Till was in Money, Mississippi, visiting relatives.
The Atlantic reports that Till’s mother had warned her son about the differences between racism in Chicago and racism in Mississippi. It was 1955, and Mobley told her son not to look a white woman in the eye.
“‘Say ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, ma’am.’ Don’t look white women in the eye. Be silent. Be invisible,” she said.
Till’s cousin Wheeler Parker was with Till and their cousin Simeon Wright on the day that Till allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, 21 and white. The cousins were at Bryant’s Grocery. Parker said that he remembered the fear on Wright’s face after Till whistled and knew something bad would happen. He said that Till also became fearful after he saw his cousin’s expression.
Whoopi Goldberg, Danielle Deadwyler to Star in Movie About Emmett Till’s Mother https://t.co/KViV86EUQz
— Variety (@Variety) July 23, 2021
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Later that night, Till and Parker were awakened by Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam. Bryant had a pistol, and Milam had a flashlight. Parker remembers Mrs. Till begging them not to take her son and offering all of their money. The men and several others kidnapped Till, hung, tortured, and beat him to death. He was also shot in the head.
“They came to me,” said Parker. “I was shaking like a leaf. Whole bed was shaking. I closed my eyes and said, ‘This is it.’ And I was praying. I said, ‘God if you just let me live, I will be doing right,’ because I thought of every evil little thing I’ve done wrong, you know? Oh, man, I was begging,” he said.
Mobley had an open-casket burial for her mutilated son despite his condition. She said that she wanted the world to see what they did to her son. Till was her only child.
“I saw his tongue had been choked out and it was lying down on his chin,” said Mobely. “This eye was out and it was lying about mid-way the cheek. I discovered a hole. And I said, ‘Well, was it necessary to shoot him?’ I said I want the world to see this because, there is no way I could tell this story and give them the visual picture of what my son looked like,” Mobley said.
The film will focus on Mobley’s decision to have an open casket burial and its effect on the civil rights movement. Actress Danielle Deadwyler will star as Mamie Till-Mobley, and Chinonye Chukwu will direct the film.
