and whoopi goldberg. this is something that she was trying to do before he passed away. in fact, in 1955, 56, she did have two movie deals. but the film was never made. so, throughout her 47 year of struggle, fighting to get justice for her son, she had also tried to get this film made. and so i can honestly tell you, it s quite rewarding to be able to fulfill this particular promise that was given to her before she passed away, that we would do all that we can to make sure that this story has a broader platform so the world could be awakened again by the murder and the legacy of emmett till. something i talked to whoopi about yesterday was this clarity that she has in everything that she does. her decision to go to mississippi for the trial, her decision to do what she s telling you there in the doc,
emmett would have been. i m proud of him and whoopi for getting it out. i was able in the years i got to know mamie and worked with her cousins and all the foundation to know how important this was to her. the one thing i remember, nicolle, and i shared this with keith is when i was a teenager and joined the 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 mobley, it was the direct reason rosa parks didn t get off that bus, and it took all of these years, but thank god for a person like keith and mamie, the story is out, so people understand. it didn t start with george floyd. it continues with george floyd. it started when a courageous woman opened that casket.
story as mother mogley would say, until man s consciousness is risen. because only then that would mean justice for emmett till. what was watching this film like for you? you knew her. you know the story. the film is it transports you. and even if you are familiar with it, i wonder what that was like. it reminded me of how we had to be of two minds in this country. i was born and raised in brooklyn, new york, but my mother was from alabama. and when we would visit her folks in alabama, we literally, as mamie till mogley had to do, be taught how to act down there. can you imagine the pain and humiliation of a mother having to tell their child that you have to act a certain way to accommodate people s hatred of you? and the pain that must be inside of them to have to tell their
nicolel. it s just extraordinary in her performance. what did we see? we saw the murder of innocence. but we also saw what? emmett till s courage, her conviction, and her faith. and those three things in so many ways gave birth to the modern civil rights movement. in some ways, the murder, the lynching of mehmet till was the south s answer to brown v. board of education. and the response to emmett till s murder was the mass mobilization of everyday people. it s an extraordinary film. it s so horrific to see a mother put her baby boy on a train and tell him to be small. and it s just the first of the horrors she goes through. the second, and whoopi and i talked about it, is her primal scream when her baby comes home
from william faulkner in 1955 in response to the murder of emmett till. he said, if we in america have reached a point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, we won t survive. and probably shouldn t. let me say really quick, i get nervous. you don t have to be really quick with us. i want to you know, the film wrecked the is only word i can think of. and it cracks you open. but the most shocking thing is when the black screen comes up and you see that the antilynching act passed this year. took us 67 years to pass federal anti-lynching legislation. and i remember covering at the time and being aware of that. but putting it all out there in this moment just feels really, really important. yeah, you know, we ve never really grappled with, i think, fundamentally with our debt in this regard.