Will Smith & Jay-Z Executive Producing Mini Series On Emmett Till

According to Entertainment Weekly Will Smith and Jay-Z are executive producing a miniseries about Emmett Till for HBO. James Lassiter, Jay Brown and Aaron Kaplan are also executive producers on the as yet to be titled project. Emmett Till was a 14-year old teenager from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955 when he was beat and shot to death for flirting with a white woman. Till’s brutal death resulting from racism and his mother’s decision to show his drowned, mutilated body in an open casket funeral was a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. In 2003 PBS released the documentary, The Murder Of Emmett Till.