Keith Beauchamp – TILL
A Trailblazer, our Living Legend filmmaker and civil rights activist to the highest order discusses his connection to Emmett Till and the development of the documentary and recent film. Learn about the 1955 Trinity Killings and their role in the establishment, growth and effectiveness of the civil rights movement in the United States.
Count Time Podcast Living Legend Keith Beauchamp
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra Interview with Filmaker Keith Beauchamp
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up it’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of Count Time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra. Thank you for joining us today.
Today. We got someone here that flew all the way from the big what’s called the Big Apple, New York. He flew down here to do this special interview with LD. Well, I’m just joking, but I appreciate it. Welcome to Count Time, Mr. Keith Beauchamp.
KB
Thank you.
LD
You’ve been busy. Got a lot going on. We’re going to find out why and what’s going on. I like to first thank my girl, my ride and die, you know, the one who get it all done for me, ms. Mada McDonough. Thank you, Ms. Mada, for making this happen. This is what she do. And I got my daughter here. She back on the scene. I got Samia. She going to be working it today.
Let’s kind of get this out the way now because it’s important because Southern University is putting on an opera downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the Shaw Center. Tell us about what’s going on with that.
KB
Well, apparently there’s an opera, which is about the Emmett Till Case, which I’m very excited about. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of participating and supporting many plays and musicals about Emmett Till, which is surprising within himself. And so Southern University have their project on Emmett Till case. I’m here in town to support, to lend my support and to support all those who’s there because it’s a very important story that we must continually, continually tell.
LD
You started working on a movie quite a few years ago.
KB
Well, not just the movie. The movie itself has taken me 29 years to produce. But I also produced a documentary, the Untold Story of Emmett Lewis Till that went out in theaters in 2005. That led to the reopening of the Emmett Till case in 2004.
LD
Hold on, so you’re saying because of your documentary, they reopened that case?
KB
Yes, that was me yesterday. Okay, but my most recent project is Till, which is about the story of Emmett Lewis Till, who was a young African American boy who, in 1955, he was 14 years old, went to the Mississippi Delta to visit relatives. And within one week’s time, he was abducted from his great uncle’s home and tortured from one of the oldest taboos of the south addressing a white woman in public.
