The six-episode television series “Women of the Movement,” filmed primarily in and around Greenwood earlier this year, will premiere Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. on ABC.
The series is based on Devery S. Anderson’s book “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement.” It focuses on the life of Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old boy from Chicago.
While visiting family in Money in 1955, Till was accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, at Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, and was kidnapped and killed as a result.
Till-Mobley famously demanded an open-casket funeral for her son to show the world what happened to him. Till was tortured and disfigured during his killing, and Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who later admitted to killing him, were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury. The murder put Till-Mobley at the forefront of the burgeoning civil rights movement.
The series was filmed in and around Greenwood and Leflore County from January to April, with numerous residents serving as extras and local businesses serving as backdrops or filming locations.
The show is set during the summer months, but it was very cold during filming, said Anne Marie Gregory, who works at the Leflore County office of the Mississippi State University Extension Service. “I did bring Hot Hands (hand warmers) that day, which was very clutch,” she said.
Anne Marie Gregory served as an extra in the TV series “Women of the Movement.” (By Johnny Jennings)
She recalled one very emotional scene she worked on when Till-Mobley, played by actress Adrienne Warren, receives her son’s body at a train station. “I do remember her; she was channeling, trying to feel that emotion because she was portraying that person,” Gregory said.
“When she came in, the director did try to keep it somber so she could stay in her mentality, which is unfortunately a bad mentality, but she had to be in character in that way to really honor and respect the actual person that went through it.”
Brandice Brown, a theater teacher at Amanda Elzy High School, was teaching virtual classes and took the opportunity to involve her students.
“I wanted them to see how it was,” she said, “so in between takes when I was getting dressed and makeup and stuff, I would login to class to let them see what it was like behind the scenes and introducing them to different people.”
She was an extra in several scenes set at a church and a cotton field. “It was awesome working with a lot of people from Greenwood,” she said. “Just seeing everybody’s excitement and everybody coming together and having fun on this project. That had to be the most memorable portion of it all, and of course, being extremely cold.”
She said she was familiar with the Emmett Till story, having heard about it since she was a child.
“Of course as you grow older, you do more research, you find out how gruesome, how cruel those people were back in that time and how they did the young man,” she said.
“I think it’s important for us, especially since we’re from Greenwood and we’re so close to the site where he was killed,” she said. “I think that was a small thing we could have done to honor him, honor his legacy, and honor (his mother’s) legacy.”
Betty Sanders served as an extra in the TV series “Women of the Movement.” (By Johnny Jennings)
Betty Sanders, a retired Leflore County circuit judge, worked for about two weeks as an extra in a scene that covers the trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. It takes place at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, which has been preserved as a museum.
“I think that’s when most of us got to know each other,” she said. “On some of the daily calls, you were busy, and you didn’t really get a chance to visit with one another as much, but being together for that long stretch of time, and some days were very long ... there was a lot of wait time.”
She said the series is of high quality, made with great attention to detail. “You could tell how particular they were about everything,” she said. “Small things that you and I may not have paid attention to that they would stop and change to make sure everything was done correctly.”
She said she enjoyed the experience: “Not only did I meet new people, I was reintroduced to folks from Greenwood that our paths hadn’t crossed in several years.”
- Contact Kevin Edwards at 662-581-7233 or kedwards@gwcommonwealth.com.
