A panel discussion on the "Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till" documentary
September 8, 2022
4:00 - 5:30 p.m. CST
City County Building /Small Assembly Room
400 Main St. Knoxville, TN
Cost: KBA (Knoxville Bar Association) Members $35; Non-Members $50
Featuring Keith Beauchamp, Till Freedom Come Productions, LLC, Producer/Director/Host, Cynthia Deitle, Meta, Civil Rights Team, Director, Associate General Counsel Dale Killinger, Retired Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Owner, InTC LLC Approved for 1.5 hours of General CLE Credit
This documentary chronicles Emmett's story, the trial of his killers, and most importantly, the identification of new witnesses and evidence that had been overlooked in 1955. Mr. Beauchamp's documentary persuaded the FBI to open an investigation into Emmett's murder which was assigned to Special Agent Dale Killinger. This investigation led to the opening of other Civil Rights Era Cold Case murders supervised by then FBI Civil Rights Unit Chief Cynthia Deitle. This event includes an abbreviated showing of Mr. Beauchamp's documentary followed by an examination of the Till murder investigation, additional Cold Case investigations, and a discussion of how these cases, and the intergenerational trauma suffered by the victims' ancestors, is relevant today.
Never-before-seen testimony is included in this documentary on Emmett Louis Till, who, in 1955, was brutally murdered after he whistled at a white woman. Simple yet riveting, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till articulates the madness of racism in the South of the 1950s. Combining archival photos and footage with deeply felt interviews, this documentary tells the harrowing story of what happened when a mischievous 14 year old black boy from Chicago, visiting his relatives in Mississippi, whistled at a white woman in the street. The lynching that followed was so gruesome that a media circus surrounded the trial--and what stunned the nation was not only the crime, but the blithe unconcern the citizens of a small Mississippi town felt toward the brutal murder of a black teenager. The interviews suspensefully unveil the story, moving from the viewpoint of Till's mother to the perspective of his Southern cousins to actual film of Till's uncle, who had the astonishing courage to accuse the two killers in court. Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, addressed the entire country in news footage, begging that something be done so that her son did not die in vain. The awkward, un-media-savvy quality of the 1950s interviews may seem to come from another world, but the harsh truth of what happened sprang all too clearly from America's still unresolved racial conflicts. A passionate, compelling documentary.
