Shonda Rhimes to honor Emmett Till's story with new passion project

Television producer and screenwriter Shonda Rhimes is taking on a new passion project.

The TV titan, who known for hit shows like "Bridgerton" and "Scandal," is teaming up with the Emmett Till Interpretive Center to preserve the powerful history of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old boy who was kidnapped, beaten and lynched in Mississippi in August 1955 after being accused of whistling at a white woman.

"My hope is that this story never gets lost," Rhimes told "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts.

Who was Emmett Till?

Till's murder occurred nearly 70 years ago, but his death remains a symbol of racism and brutality against Black people in the U.S.

Till, who was visiting from Chicago at the time of his death, was accused by a woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, for whistling at her and making sexual advances after leaving a store in Mississippi.

He was later abducted from his great-uncle Moses Wright's home by Bryant Donham's husband Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam. Till's brutalized remains were found days later in the Tallahatchie River.

Photographs of Till's mother Mamie Till-Mobley grieving at her son's funeral over his open casket were later published in Jet magazine and helped catalyze the Civil Rights Movement.

Roy Bryant and Milam were charged with Till's murder, but were eventually acquitted by an all-white jury. They later confessed to killing Till in a paid magazine interview. Bryant Donham, who died in April, was never arrested for the incident, but in the years prior to her death, activists tried to hold her accountable for her connection to Till's murder.

Following her son's death, Till-Mobley went on to become an educator and prominent activist, and co-founded the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, which helped reopen Till's murder for a reinvestigation.

The campaign led to a successful joint investigation by the state of Mississippi, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice in 2004, as well as the passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which authorizes the investigation and prosecution of cold cases that are related to civil rights violations.

Till-Mobley died in 2003.

"The Barn"

Rhimes' new project is all about memorializing sites that are significant to Till's murder, including the barn where Till was killed.

It was a 2021 article called "The Barn" by Wright Thompson in The Atlantic that she said inspired her to get involved.

"I don't think I had ever known where it happened, where a child had been tortured and killed," Rhimes said. "I couldn't let it go. I kept thinking about it for weeks afterwards."

The barn is located deep in the Mississippi Delta and sits a hundred yards off a rural gravel road. Thompson, a Mississippi native who grew up in the Mississippi Delta, and who has dedicated his career to amplifying hidden history in his hometown, told "GMA" that he has visited the barn countless times.

"I didn't know a single thing about Emmett Till until I got to college and started taking classes," Thompson said. "The school system down here is almost designed specifically so that knowledge doesn't get passed."

"I've got two little girls who are going to grow up as Mississippians, and they need to know," Thompson added.

Protecting Till's legacy

One of the ways in which Wright is making sure Till's story is told today has been connecting with Till's family over the years, including Rev. Wheeler Parker, who is the last living witness of Till's kidnapping.

"Seeing how he has spent his entire life trying to make sure people don't forget his friend -- he was his best friend, cousin," Thompson said of Parker. "They rode the train south from Chicago. He was in the house with him the night he was kidnapped."

Thompson also talked about what Till went through the night he was kidnapped.

"He was in the back of a truck, and you see how rural this is now?" he said. "Not knowing where you were going or what was going to happen when you got there...."

Rhimes is also making it her mission to ensure Till's story continues to be told, and bought the barn so that the Till family and their foundation can continue to honor his legacy.

"It changed the course of how I was thinking about my charitable giving. It changed the course of how I was thinking about even preserving history. It was powerful," she said.

"The Mellon Foundation, led by Elizabeth Alexander, is doing an amazing job with the preservation of the sites, and helping to purchase the sites and sort of bringing it all together," Rhimes added. "History is always told by the victors. And I think that it's important that the Till family is the victor in this story."