Taraji P. Henson Will Be Starring and Producing A Movie Based on Emmett Till

Taraji P. Henson will be producing and starring in a movie about Emmett Till. She will play Emmett Till mother, Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African American kid who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family’s grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States.

Till was accused of flirting and whistling at a woman named Carolyn Bryant. In 1955, Bryant had testified Till made physical and verbal advances. The jury did not hear Bryant’s testimony, due to the judge ruling it inadmissible. Decades later, Bryant disclosed that she had lied about parts of her testimony (LIED ABOUT THE WHOLE STORY) regarding her interaction with Till, specifically the portion where she accused Till of grabbing her waist and uttering obscenities; “that part’s not true,” Bryant stated in a 2008 interview with historian Timothy Tyson.