(gentle percussive music)
- Hello, my name is Starr Rocque and I am here with BET.com.
Hi Chinonye, how are you?
- Hello, how are you?
- I'm good, I'm good.
Okay, so, you know,
Emmett Till's story is traumatic,
but it's necessary viewing.
So talk about your approach to telling this story
with how you balanced the fact that it's educational
but also with kind of how you conveyed the trauma
in the storytelling.
- Well, first, this is not the Emmett Till story. (chuckles)
This is a story about Mamie.
And so when we understand that narrative perspective,
it really opens up the story, right?
And this is a film that follows Mamie's emotional journey
and her journey in evolving activist consciousness,
you know?
The physical violence that was inflicted upon Emmett
is not critical to understanding or telling Mamie's journey.
And so just being very clear about that,
within myself, as a writer/director,
it was a no-brainer for me when figuring out,
when making the decision to really focus
on her emotional POV.
And that means the exclusion
of the physical violence against Black bodies.
And so right there,
that reflects a sensitivity to the trauma
that's a part of what happened to Emmett.
But it's not,
that's not Mamie's story.
- And so what was unique about working
with this particular cast and crew?
Like, what did you love about the production
and did you learn anything about this story
that you didn't know before?
- I mean, I didn't know,
I'd never heard about Dr. T. R. M. Howard
before I signed on to make this film.
You know, I didn't know about Mound Bayou's rich history.
I knew a little bit about Ruby Hurley,
but I didn't know to what extent
she was involved in this story.
Myrlie Evers is another Freedom Fighter
who I didn't know too, too much about.
And so I learned so much
and I also learned how big the story is
and how critical the community was to Mamie's journey.
And so that's something
that I just continue to be blown away about.
And I hope that it will inspire audiences
to go do some, you know, Google searching
to learn more about all of the people in the story.
- Yeah, and I know you were very intentional
about even like the way it was ended with Mamie's speech.
And she said, "When something happens
to one of us in the world, it happens to all of us."
And then to top that off with the fact
that we got a reminder that the anti-lynching bill
was just signed into law in March.
60 plus years later.
So I said that to say,
can you elaborate on why her speech was important?
Like, why is it that when something happens to one of us
it's something that we should all be concerned about?
We're gonna elaborate for the people in the back. (laughs)
- Well, it's because we're all connected. (laughs)
We're all connected, you know,
as Black people, we're all connected.
And that's in a diasporic sense, around the world,
as human beings, we're all connected.
And that we have to be considerate
and intentional about our contributions to the world
because it's our contributions to one another.
And we're living and existing in this world together.
And so we have to be intentional
and conscious about what that means.
And, you know, some of us, there are people,
we have different privileges from one another
and are oppressed in different ways than one another.
And we have to be as mindful of all
of those different privileges and oppressions
that are across communities.
You know?
And Mamie's speech in the Harlem rally,
it's taken from her actual words.
She was content in this middle class bubble
before her son was taken from her
and was not concerned about people outside of that bubble.
And her bubble was burst
in a way that really forced her to realize
that her journey, her experience is tied to other people.
That we are living for more than just ourselves.
(bright music)