Everyone Should See This Extremely Significant Film!

Part 1

The 2022 film Till is a biographical drama based on the true story of Mamie Till, played by Danielle Deadwyler, who became an activist pursuing justice after her 14-year-old son, Emmett, was lynched in a racially motivated incident in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955. I had been meaning to watch this for some time and the (now canceled, hopefully temporarily) Black History Month seemed the best time.

The film begins showing Mamie and Emmett’s happy life in Chicago. Emmett, nicknamed “Bo,” is played by Jalyn Hall. The family plans a trip for Emmett to visit relatives in Mississippi and Mamie warns Emmett to be extra careful around all white people. At a train station, Mamie’s uncle, Mose “Preacher” Wright, played by John Douglas Thompson, meets Emmett. When the train crosses the Mason-Dixon line, all the black people have to go to the back.

Emmett joins his cousins picking cotton as sharecroppers, then they go to Money on the evening of August 24. Emmett was told never to leave his cousins, but ventures into Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market alone. What followed depends on who you believe, but in the movie Emmett tells Carolyn Bryant, a young woman at the cash register, that she looks like a movie star and shows her a photograph of a white woman which came with his new wallet. He buys some candy and leaves the store when his cousin drags him out. He was accused of saying, “Bye, baby” while leaving. In the movie he says, “Bye-bye, bye bye.” Outside the store, he whistled. This probably happened, according to witnesses, although one person said he was whistling at the card game going on outside, not at Carolyn. Carolyn went to her car to retrieve a gun and Emmett and his cousins fled. She appeared to be training a pistol on them as they left.

All is quiet for about three days. Emmett and his cousins do not tell the adults what happened. Then, in the late night of August 27/early morning of August 28, Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant, played by Sean Michael Weber, and his half-brother John William “J.W.” Milam, played by Eric Whitten, arrive at the Wright home to “teach that boy from Chicago a lesson.”

Emmett’s murder is not shown on camera, but only hinted at from the point of view of Willie Reed, played by Darian Rolle, who witnessed from a distance Emmett with a group of people.

As far as objectionable content, there is a fair amount of smoking, and Emmett’s mutilated corpse, horribly discolored and bloated after being left in a river, is shown in extreme detail as his mother examines it and then displays it at an open casket funeral. The reaction of his mother and other observers are shown, although I’m sure I saw a film of people taking one look, fainting, and having to be dragged off, which was not in the movie. The rest of the movie concerns Mamie Till going to Mississippi for the murder trial of the only two men accused.

A few interesting details in real life and how they were handled in the movie: Emmett’s father, Louis Till, is spoken of as having died in service as if he was killed in action or in some war-related incident. Actually, he and another man were executed for a war crime they may or may not have committed. It’s natural that Mamie would want Emmett to regard his father as a dead war hero and that she wouldn’t speak of him otherwise to anyone else. There was also domestic violence in the relationship which wasn’t mentioned in the movie.

Previous to this I knew several people were involved in Emmett’s murder, but I didn’t know it was possibly as many as fourteen and that some of the participants were black. The number isn’t mentioned in the movie but both black and white people being involved is mentioned. I didn’t know that Medgar Evers and his wife helped Mamie when she went south for the trial.

A conversation takes place between Mamie and “Preacher” Wright indicating that “Preacher” knew Emmett would be killed but didn’t strongly resist his being taken, other than a few verbal pleas. The cousins also tell Emmett that Negroes (the term used throughout the film, except that “colored” is used twice) have been killed for less than what he did. I’m sure that years ago I saw a film where one of the cousins was interviewed and at some point it was said, not necessarily by the cousin but by somebody, that Emmett’s relatives believed the intention of the white men was only to frighten him and nobody expected him to be killed. Someone with more knowledge of the case could perhaps corroborate this.

Carolyn Bryant, whose story signed Emmett’s death warrant, and who was still alive when this film came out, was never arrested or charged with any crime. Many years later she admitted her testimony, given under oath, was largely lies.