The Murder of Emmett Till (TV Documentary) is a Firelight Media production for PBS American Experience, aired in 2003.
The film chronicles the story of Emmett Till, a 14-year old black boy visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. He was brutally murdered by two white men for whistling at a white woman, unaware he had broken an un-written law of the Jim Crow South. His mother decided to place her son’s body on display at a Church in Chicago for 4 days so that the world could see what had been done to her son. Photos flooded newspapers, putting the case on the map both nationally and internationally. The two men accused of his murder we acquitted after a short five-day trial with an all white male jury where the possibility of justice was made a mockery of. Shortly afterward, the defendants sold their story to journalists detailing how they carried out the murder. The Emmett Till case was a significant motivator of the civil rights movement, and the Montgomery bus boycott began three months after his body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River
2004 Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film and Digital Media 2003 Emmy Award – Best Non-fiction Director Stanley Nelson 2003 Emmy Nomination – Best Screenplay Marcia Smith 2003 International Documentary Association Awards – Distinguished Documentary Achievement 2003 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Award
The Murder of Emmett Till aired on PBS’s American Experience in January 2003