The further history gets from us, the easier it becomes to dismiss it as some far-flung past when, in fact, it remains all too relevant to our present. “Women of the Movement,” premiering Jan. 6 on…
, Julie Dash and Kasi Lemmons, this first season of “Women of the Movement” does all it can to imbue Emmett Till and his mother with the kind of humanity they have long been denied. Emmett, played with a heartbreaking openness by Cedric Joe, is an eager kid whose curiosity can get the better of him, as is typical of just about any kid.
Over the course of six episodes , “Women of the Movement” portrays the birth, death, and afterlife of Emmett Till through the eyes of Mamie, the wider Black community mourning him, and the white Mississippians who couldn’t see him as anything other than a threat. There’s only so many subtleties the show can afford given such limited time, and so it often defaults to making each scene the most blunt version of itself in order to make maximum impact.
What generally saves “Women of the Movement” from becoming a rote piece of didactic storytelling is both the empathy of the direction and vulnerability of its main actors. In his brief screen time, Joe fully embodies a child who has too often been relegated to a symbol status that strips him of his humanity. As his uncle Mose, who releases Emmett to his eventual murderers under threat of death, Glynn Turman is quietly devastating in every scene he gets.
Warren and “Women of the Movement” alike are clear-eyed in their portrayals of how a past atrocity unfolded on the most personal levels, and how it continues to echo today. Even when the series hammers the morals of its story home, its refusal to pretend like this country’s made big enough strides since Till’s murder is a credit to its determination to tell the whole truth.
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