In the summer of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till from Chicago was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two white men and brutally murdered. His crime: allegedly whistling at a white woman in a convenience store. 

His mother insisted on an open-casket viewing of her son’s gruesomely disfigured body. More than a hundred thousand people attended the service. This outraged mother’s actions galvanized the civil rights movement, leaving an indelible mark on American racial consciousness.

The trial of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, accused of kidnapping and murdering Emmett, was the first full-scale media event of the civil rights movement, and the outcome proved to be a true travesty of justice.

What followed altered the course of this country’s history, and it was all set in motion by the sheer will, determination, and courage of Mamie Till-Mobley – a woman who would pull herself back from the brink of suicide to become a teacher and inspire countless children throughout the country.

“Emmett Till” will be the first feature film that fully depicts this defining moment of American history, and a painful yet beautiful account of a mother’s ability to transform tragedy into boundless courage and hope.