HE IMAGE OF EMMETT TILL’S MUTILATED CORPSE, MURDERED BY WHITE supremcists in 1955, changed the course of the Civil Rights movement. That change came because of Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother, who, despite her personal (in theaters, October 14). The role was “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” says Deadwyler. She and director Chinonye Chukwu “understood the weight of the work is beyond just making a piece of cinema, it’s beyond just making a piece of art, it’s a conversation with the world.” While “Emmett walked into a cesspool of racial division,” it was the “glorious bravery” of Mamie “to go into that fire and to come out of it, and then to go back into her own community and to educate....We are forever indebted to her because of that.” Ultimately, Deadwyler hopes people leave recognizing “how courageous and bold you can be in the darkest of times.”
