Emmett Till biopic trailer released, will debut at New York Film Festival
nypost.comsaid in a statement.Directed by Chukwu, the film also stars Whoopi Goldberg, Frankie Faison, Haley Bennett, and Sean Patrick Thomas.The trailer, released on Monday, shows Emmett’s mother (played by Danielle Deadwyler) fighting back tears as she says, “This was my boy, Emmett Till.”The clip then shows Emmett (played by Jalyn Hall) preparing for his visit to see his cousins.“The lynching of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all,” Emmett’s mother says in the trailer.Carolyn Bryant Donham — then just Carolyn Bryant and 21 years old — accused Till of making improper advances and obscene comments toward her while she was working the register of her family’s store in Money, Miss., in August 1955.Till, who was in town from Chicago to visit relatives, allegedly whistled at her, according to a cousin who witnessed the interaction.
Such an interaction violated the racist code of behavior in the Jim Crow-era South.Donham told her husband, Roy Bryant, about the alleged encounter.
Enraged that a black boy allegedly came on to his white wife, Bryant and his half-brother John William Milam kidnapped the young teen from his great-uncle’s house two nights later and subsequently beat him, shot him and tossed his body in a river.Till’s body was discovered three days later.Following a murder trial, an all-white jury acquitted the men.
Months later, they admitted to their crimes in a magazine interview.A woman, possibly Donham, identified Till to his killers, according to testimony from the case — prompting the warrant for her arrest.The warrant was reported in papers at the time but never served.
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