woman opened that congress, starting to expose what we have to deal with and why we have to deal with racism in this country. the story can t be told without the story of mamie till mogley. it made me cry when he said that. how do you feel when he says that, that she thought of you like a son? you know, it was you know, i was very young when mother mogley and i was together. she was my mentor for eight and a half years, until she took her last breath. and this, you know, this is a sense of fulfillment. i m battling a lot of emotions right now because we lost a lot of people along the way. a lot of the witnesses that i interviewed for the untold story of emmett lewis till have passed on. so, you have that question in your head, are you doing the right thing, are you second guessing why you re here, going through all those emotions. the one thing i know for sure is that it is very important that we continue to tell emmett s
the face? you want me to try to fix it up? i said, no. let the people see what i see. i said, i want the world to see this. extraordinary, extraordinary woman. so, the men who conducted an interview with mamie was documentary filmmaker keith bow shont. he along with whoopi goldberg willed this film into being. he joins me now. also joining us the reverend al sharpton, host of politics nation and president of the national action network. keith, i said this to whoopi yesterday. i ll say it to you. the film is a masterpiece. it wrecks me to watch the film and then to see mamie. just tell me your story of how you came to make the movie. well, the movie itself has taken me 29 years, close to 20 years with fred, zolo, barbara,
as whoopi and them for getting it out. because i was able in the years i got to know mamie and work with all of her cousins at the foundation, to know how important this was to her. and one thing i remember, nicole, and i shared this with keith is when i was a teenager and joined the movement, civil rights movement in the north, rosa parks said when she sat in front of the bus a year after emmett till and they told her to get up, she said she thought about getting up, but she couldn t get up. she thought about emmett till. that s how significant mamie till mogley opening that casket letting the world see what they did to her. it was the direct reason rosa parks didn t get up off that bus. it took all these years. thank god for people like keith and for mamie. it didn t start with george floyd. it continued with george floyd. it started with a courageous
seeing, i really want to make sure that we told this in a way that everyone could see. i tell people, you can bring your 12-year-old to see this, you know? you need to be if you re going to erase the history that is already been put out there, then we need to put it in a film so you can see what this will look like if you don t stop it now. you re in the movie. you re mamie s mom. yeah. you re glorious as her mom. but it starts out as this conversation. i mean, mamie tells her boy, bo, be small. yeah. they have a different set of rules for negros down there. are you listening? yes. you have to be extra careful with white people. you can t risk looking at them the wrong way. i know. bo, be small down there. like this.
beautiful 14-year-old boy, emmett till in mississippi. the year was 1955. till was kidnapped, tortured. he was lynched after being accused of whistling at a white woman in a grocery store. his murder stunned the nation. it ignited the civil rights movement in part, thanks to his mom, mamie, who made the gut-wrenching decision in her grief to hold an open casket funeral so the nation and the world could bear witness to this savagery of her son s murderers. she spent the rest of her life seeking justice for her beloved boy. she called him bo. mamie s story has largely been lost to history until right now, thanks to the extraordinary new film till. simply put, it is a masterpiece. it is already generating lots and lots of oscar buzz. it is essential viewing. my dear friend, academy award