An untitled miniseries about Emmett Till is being produced for HBO with Jay-Z and Will Smith signed on as producers. This is not the two’s first time working together, as they have done the Broadway Musical Fela together as well as 2014’s Annie.
Emmett Till was a 14 year-old Chicago native who visited his relatives in Money, Mississippi for the summer in 1955. Till was kidnapped from his home one night and beaten to death by white men after he because he had whistled at a white woman and or asked her on a date. His mother insisted on an open casket funeral and where those images shocked the world and helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.
Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted of the murder charges but later admitted to killing Emmett Till since they could not be retried under Double Jeopardy.
The series is also to be executive produced by Jay Brown, James Lassiter, and Aaron Kaplan, No writers are attached to the project yet and Roc Nation, Overbrook, and Kapital Entertainment are the production companies involved.
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