Jay Z & Will Smith To Produce Series On The Women Of The Civil Rights Movement

Jay Z is adding yet another project to his film resume. Just a few weeks after we posted about HOV producing an upcoming Netflix movie, The Harder They Fall, Deadline now reports that he’s set to team up with Will Smith for another project called Women Of The Movement that will chronicle the civil rights movement based on the experience of women.

According to the publication, the project is in the hands of ABC and will be produced by Marissa Jo Cerar (The Handmaid’s Tale) and produced by Jay, Will and Aaron Kaplan. The first eight episodes are inspired by the Emmett Till series and on the perspective of his mother, Mamie Till, who worked hard to seek justice of her son after his brutal killing in 1955. 

Emmett was tortured, shot and then thrown into the Tallahatchie River after a white woman at a local grocery in Money, Mississippi claimed Emmett asked her on a date. Emmett’s mother’s endless work and insistence to have an open casket for her son was considered a tipping point for the civil rights movement and did wonders for the NAACP. 

Three months after Emmett’s death, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white rider. “I thought of Emmett Till and I just couldn’t go back,” she said after the historic moment. There’s no set date for the release of Jay Z and Will Smith’s series but keep it locked for more updates.