By Symone Daniels, The Source
A new anthology series, Women Of The Movement, which chronicles the civil rights movement from the point of view from the women who stood up for the rights and equal treatment for Black people is coming to ABC.
The project will be produced by Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Aaron Kaplan and written by Marissa Jo Cerar, who also wrote The Handmaids Tale.
The first season which is eight episodes is based on the book Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement by Devery S. Anderson. It will focus on Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till and how she fought for justice for her son, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old who was murdered in Mississippi after being accused of whistling at a white woman.
Till, who was visiting his family in the south was kidnapped at gunpoint, beat, and shot in the head. The men also tied the teen’s body to a large metal fan with barbed wire before throwing him into the Tallahatchie River.
After Till saw her son’s unrecognizable body, she held an open casket funeral while calling on media outlets to show how white men had committed a horrific act against her son.
According to Deadline, the series was pitched years ago, “Roc Nation, Overbrook and Kapital first set up an Emmett Till miniseries based on the same source material at HBO five years ago with a different writer.
This article originally appeared in The Source.
