Photo Credit/MGM
The film Till was screened on Tuesday, February 28, in the Humanities building auditorium as part of the annual Civil Rights Conference.
Till powerfully depicts the brutality done to Emmett Till that sparked the start of the civil rights movement. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy from the Chicago area who was on vacation in Money, Mississippi. He was forcibly taken from his uncle’s home in the middle of the night after Carolyn Bryant embellished the truth of her and Emmett’s interaction to her husband, and Emmett was beaten and lynched before his body was discarded in the river that night. This hate crime committed against Emmett sparked an uproar within the Black community all across Mississippi; the nation; and anywhere that Mamie, his mother, could reach with this story. This tragedy determined that even Black children were not safe anymore.
Till is important because it not only shows the bigotry and violence people of color have faced throughout history but also highlights the lack of progress made in America. Telling Emmett Till’s story in film not only makes it available to a large audience that otherwise might not have known about it, but it also immortalizes the story so no future generations can forget or deny the history of the civil rights movement. It took 67 years for any form of justice to come for Emmett Till. Considering this lack of justice, it brings to light the startling truths on American bigotry at the time and to this day.
The events within Till are still timely because of recent events, such as the killing of George Floyd and lack of consequences for the officers involved. The killing of George Floyd mirrors the lynching of Emmet Till with a 65-year time difference showing how little progress humanity has truly made.
Mamie Till-Mobley was a civilian employee for the air force while being the only person of color in her office at the time of her son’s murder. After the lynching of her son, she dedicated the rest of her life to the civil rights movement and the education of young people of color. This is shown during the film where Mamie is identifying her son’s body and she makes the momentous decision that his lynching is about more than just her: it’s about every person of color in the world. She then requests only photographers of color photograph Emmett’s body to show the full extent of the horror that was afflicted upon her son.
Another example of Mamie’s bravery and fight for justice is when she testified at the trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. She attested to how she identified Emmett’s body and how any mother would be able to identify their child’s body no matter how mutilated they were. “A mother knows. Your mother would know,” she said. This also underscores her unwavering love for her son, saying that any mother could do what she did for their own child.
Mamie Till-Mobley was captured beautifully through the superb performance of Danielle Deadwyler. She was able to express not only Mamie’s grief but also her devotion to Emmett.
All in all, this movie was able to depict the grief of a loving mother along with the terrifying reality of loss that many people are generally unaware of, all framed through the steadfast pursuit of racial equality. Till is a devastating but inspiring movie that shows only a fraction of what truly happened in the 1950s and unfortunately also what is still happening to this day.
