Jay Z And Will Smith Are Producing an HBO Miniseries About Emmett Till

Rap mogul Jay Z and Suicide Squad actor Will Smith are teaming up to produce an HBO miniseries on Emmett Till. The two previously worked together to produce Annie. This time around, they're working with producer Aaron Kaplan.

Till was a black 14-year-old from Chicago who was brutally mutilated and killed in Mississippi in 1955, allegedly because he flirted with a white woman. The woman's husband and his half-brother publicly admitted to killing Till, but only after they had been acquitted in trial. They were never formally punished.

Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, brought Till's body back to Chicago and had a public funeral with an open casket, urging the general public to see the atrocity for what it was. Till's murder gained national attention in discussions of racially-motivated violence in America. Sixty years later, his death is still widely remembered. Saturday (July 25) would have been his 72nd birthday.

The HBO miniseries untitled for now, but it's expected to run six hours total. Jay Brown and James Lassiter will serve as executive producers. This project is another example of a celebrity producing a socially-conscious series for HBO. Southern Rites, a documentary about the killing of a young black man produced by John Legend, premiered on the station in May.

This is not the only on-screen project about Emmett Till being made. A movie based on the play The Face of Emmett Till, which Till's mother wrote, is being made. Meanwhile, Chaz Ebert is also working on a film about Till, based on the book Death Of Innocence: The Story Of The Hate Crime That Changed America. That book was also written by Till's mother.

In 2013, Lil Wayne came under fire for rapping about Emmett Till in the original version of Future's "Karate Chop (Remix)." He apologized to Till's family in a statement.