Let the World See (2022) s01e03 Episode Script

1
BEYONCÉ: Freedom, freedom
I can't move ♪
Freedom
Cut me loose, yeah ♪
Freedom, freedom
Where are you? ♪
'Cause I need freedom too ♪
I break chains
All by myself ♪
Won't let my freedom
Rot in hell ♪
Hey
I'ma keep running ♪
'Cause a winner
Don't quit on themselves ♪
KENDRICK LAMAR:
Huh, what you want from me? ♪
Is it truth you seek?
Oh, Father, can you hear me? ♪
Huh, what you want from me?
Is it truth you seek? ♪
Oh, Father, can you hear me? ♪
"My dear Emmett Till, of all
the tragedies of your story,
perhaps the saddest
is that you never got the chance
to do what normal kids do.
In a frightening flash,
you went from Chicago teenager
to global icon of
the Civil Rights Movement."
MAMIE TILL-MOBLEY:
Inasmuch as my son had to die,
I don't want his death
to be a vain thing.
If it can further
the cause of freedom,
then I will say
that he died a hero.
DYSON: Emmett Till's death
was chilling,
but it also inspired
many Black people.
Including Rosa Parks
a few months later,
when she sat on a bus
in Montgomery, Alabama,
and said, "Emmett Till
was on my mind."
CROWD: Freedom! Freedom!
REV. JESSE JACKSON:
The emotional transformation
came out of
Emmett Till's lynching.
To really have
Thurgood Marshall,
you have Rosa Parks,
Dr. King, the mass action.
We shall overcome ♪
We shall over ♪
-(dog barking)
-(people shouting)
KHALIL MUHAMMAD:
Across the period of the civil rights era,
Emmett Till was a rallying cry.
His murder remained
a case of injustice,
and people didn't want to
wait around
to be the next Emmett Till
until they did
something about it.
CROWD: Now! Now! Now!
Freedom ♪
TILL-MOBLEY: I had come to see that Emmett
had died for a reason.
I had come to realize
that we had to work together
to turn the sacrifice
of Emmett's life
into some positive gain.
WOMAN: She took her grieving
into activism after the trial
when she started going
on the speaking circuit.
She was willing to go anywhere
at any time
and speak to anybody,
any crowd,
any church,
any union hall
to tell the story
of her son's lynching.
And my greatest respects to you
people that have come out here
to see what we're talking about
and see what we're doing
and what we're trying to do.
(applause)
OLLIE GORDON: It was very dangerous
because Black activism at that time
and a woman, too, speaking out,
going to the Southern states
or what have you,
you never knew when someone
was going to try
to bring bodily harm to you
or was gonna try
to steal you in the night
and you never
would be seen again.
So that was great danger.
TILL-MOBLEY: I want you all
to stand by me
because it's
going to be a fight.
And if you will stand by me,
I will stand by you
because I am not afraid.
ANGIE THOMAS: And the thing was,
she was a mother.
She was not an activist,
she was a mother.
She was a mourning mother,
and she decided
that enough was enough.
TILL-MOBLEY: There was just too much
sorrow for one person to endure,
too much pain
for one person to absorb,
too much anger
for one person to express.
So the crowds helped me
get through it.
A son had been killed,
a baby had been taken.
She said,
"My baby was taken from me."
But she felt good about it
that she exposed it.
She felt she had a big role
in changing our minds
about terror, about violence,
about injustice, and she did.
GORDON: Then she also decided
to become a teacher,
and that's why she always said,
"God took my only,
but he gave me millions."
She developed a group
called The Emmett Till Players,
and she would take these kids,
and she taught them
to do oratory speaking
from Dr. King
and various other people.
If you want to say
that I was a drum major,
say that I was a drum major
for justice!
GORDON: And then that gave them
pride and made them feel like,
"Okay, I can do this.
I'm somebody."
COMMON: Something
I feel like we do a lot
as Black people in America,
we take that pain
and figure out,
how can we turn this
into something
that is life-changing,
that will better
the situation now?
That came from the fight
in Mrs. Mobley.
That came
from the warrior in her
and her honoring her son.
TILL-MOBLEY: So far as healing the hurt
is concerned,
I will never get over that.
I will take that hurt
to my grave.
It has influenced
everything I have done.
MAN: There is some talk
by state officials
-that the case would be reopened.
-Mm-hmm.
Would that please you?
Is that what you want?
Oh, yes.
Yes, that would please me
no end,
because it would certainly,
along with the other cases
that have been reopened,
it would be sending out
a message to everyone
that truth crushed to Earth
will rise again.
You don't escape
the evil you've done.
TILL-MOBLEY: I can't
remember a day
that I have been free from
the memory of Emmett's death.
MAN: Is there anyone living
that you still hold
culpable?
Yes.
Mrs. Bryant herself,
and I understand
that she has remarried
and there was a posse
that came after Emmett.
There are just so many people
involved who are yet living.
TYSON: Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam
were far from the only people
who butchered Emmett Till
in that equipment shed.
There was Leslie Milam.
There was a family friend
or two there.
LENT RICE: Back in '55,
why didn't the FBI get involved?
There was no transporting person
across the state line,
so you didn't have
From what I understand,
back in the day,
you did not have jurisdiction.
REV. WHEELER PARKER:
She died with her boots on.
She died working.
And regardless of her sickness,
regardless
what she came against,
she always wanted
to get back on the battlefield.
REV. JACKSON: She put the struggle
for emancipation
and her outrage above
personal privacy and pride
to transform a people
and redirect
the course of a nation.
(applause)
GORDON: Mrs. Mobley said
that she forgave,
and that took a lot
for her to do as a mother.
I think she really wanted
to know the truth
as to what and why
this woman
would tell the world
that her son
did these things.
MUHAMMAD: Carolyn Bryant,
no one can ever establish
what her primary motivation was
for telling the story
that she told about Emmett Till.
GLORIA J. BROWNE-MARSHALL:
When we look at the different versions
of what happened in the store,
for it to be such an infamous
part of American history,
we really don't know
that much about it.
PETER JENNINGS:
The Justice Department has said today
that it's going to reopen
an investigation
into a racially motivated murder
that occurred in 1955.
BROWNE-MARSHALL:
There was a DNA test
on the body of Emmett Till
to determine
whether or not the body
was indeed that of Emmett Till.
This question was one
that the jury used
to acquit J.W. Milam
and Roy Bryant.
GORDON: They decided
to exhume Emmett's body,
and Simeon was the cousin that
they took the DNA to compare.
ANNIE WRIGHT:
So they came to the house
and took whatever they needed.
WOMAN: So that's proof right there
it was Emmett.
DYSON: They closed the case
after they had accumulated
8,000 pages
of evidence in the case.
There was not enough evidence
to bring Carolyn Bryant
to trial.
You know, nobody could
actually finger-point her
and actually put her
in the truck.
There was not a possibility
that she would be tried.
REV. PARKER: Carolyn is still living,
she's 87.
She's the only one that's
living that was involved.
And she talked to nobody.
Yeah, Ed Bradley appeared
at the door
with a camera
looking over his shoulder,
but he got the door
slammed in his face.
And, you know, five and six
decades after the fact,
I got a call from a nice woman
in Raleigh, and she said,
"You might know
about my mother-in-law.
She was named Carolyn Bryant,
and I was wondering if we could
get together and have coffee."
Got in the house,
she hugged me in the hallway.
Just like every Methodist church
lady I ever knew, you know?
Then there was a piece of
pound cake back in the kitchen
and cup of coffee for me.
And then she starts mumbling,
"Well, they're all dead now,
anyway."
She talked about, you know,
the story about Emmett Till
and him putting his hands
on her and stuff.
She said,
"You tell these stories
until they become real,
they feel real."
She said, "But
But that part's not true."
And she said,
"Nothing that boy did
could ever justify
what happened to him."
REV. PARKER: When Tyson said
that she said what she said,
I said, "Wow, I feel great."
I said, "Man, this is
what I've been waiting for
50-something years, you know,
to hear something like this."
The truth is out.
When Tyson's book came out
and he said
that she had recanted,
that's what led
to the reopening of the case.
REV. PARKER: And shortly thereafter,
a family member came out
and said she didn't say that.
TYSON:
I told the FBI from the start
that I had not found
anything in their report,
nor in my interviews
that was gonna, uh,
be prosecutable.
GORDON: They went to Carolyn.
They went to the author.
They went to
the daughter-in-law.
They went to the son.
They also questioned, um,
the woman that
did transcriptions for Tyson.
None of them could validate
that they heard her say
that she had recanted
her statement.
The case, it stayed open
approximately 3 1/2 years,
and at that time,
the family was called in.
And we were told that
there was no new evidence,
nothing sufficient
to continue with the case.
Following the exhaustive,
multi-year investigation,
we now know
that the case is closed.
This is a document
that we received
on December 6th
from the FBI headquarters,
where the family was brought in
to brief on the findings.
"After careful review
of the evidence
relating to Carolyn Bryant's
alleged recantation
and the circumstances
surrounding Mr. Till's murder,
we have concluded
there are no living suspects
that could be
federally prosecuted
for Mr. Till's abduction
and murder."
They could not bring
any new charges,
and at that point,
they had decided
that the case would be closed.
REV. PARKER: Her son was gone.
She had created a life.
And I remember what she said
"Carry on the legacy."
(applause)
Of course we're here
because of Emmett Till,
and I can't help but wish
that Mamie was here.
If she was here, I wouldn't have
to be here doing what I'm doing.
This is the fourth sign.
That makes a statement
in itself.
And so we have a new sign.
But I just point
your attention
to the fine print
on the bottom of that sign
that acknowledges the vandalism.
It records the theft
and the gunshots
because that's part
of the story, too.
REV. PARKER: We want to thank you all
for coming out
and helping us
to carry on the legacy.
We're here
because Emmett Till speaks.
GORDON:
I've come to the resting place
of Emmett's father,
Louis Till.
It took me 70-some years,
but I made the journey.
Looking for one lost soul.
I want to leave these flowers
in honor of your son,
Emmett Louis Till,
and his mother, Mamie.
JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN:
Plot E, where Louis Till was buried,
it was a special plot
where people who had been
dishonorably discharged
and executed by the
United States Army were buried.
There are 96 bodies
in that plot.
83 of them are people of color.
He's laid in this
less-than-honorable area
for a crime that we're still
not sure that he committed.
But he's not forgotten.
And he had a child
that met his demise
at such a young age of 14.
Emmett Till's mother
carried the torch
to keep the legacy alive,
which spearheaded
the Civil Rights Movement.
(indistinct shouting)
THELMA WRIGHT: There's a backlash.
(indistinct shouting)
And the young people,
they're not gonna take
what we took.
I'm sorry.
They're not gonna take it.
COMMON: But true progress
hasn't really occurred
because if one life is being
taken because you're Black,
then progress there's still
more progress to be made.
When I think of bravery,
I think of Mamie.
I absolutely think of her.
She set the standard
for what we call now
the Mothers of the Movement.
We see Trayvon Martin's mother
speaking out on her son,
Michael Brown's mother
speaking out on her son.
But my hope is,
is that at some point,
we don't have to have
any more Mamies,
we don't have to know
any more names.
MICHELLE OBAMA:
The politics of policing,
of political organizing
around job fairness,
that was all going on
throughout my childhood.
Now, did I tie it
directly to what happened?
No, I was too young for that.
But knowing the history,
it was breathing throughout
everything I experienced.
It was That was just
one example,
a clear, historic example
of why all of this matters
and what could happen
if we're not engaged.
MUHAMMAD: We should always
say Emmett Till's name,
because for everything
we know about what's possible
when people stand up
for justice,
so much of it starts
with his short-lived life.
And he has become
and remains a symbol,
and through his mother's
and his family's own heroism,
a symbol of what we can all do
when we commit ourselves
to truth and to justice
and fight for it
and never give up.
(choir) I love the Lord ♪
We thank you for the life
and legacy of Bobo.
Even in death,
he still speaks loud.
I'll hasten to ♪
His ♪
Yeeeeeeah ♪
Throne ♪
Oh, yeaaaaah ♪
Yeah ♪
(cheers and applause)
WOMAN: Yeah!