Current Tony nominee Adrienne Warren has been tapped to star in the lead role of Mamie Till-Mobley in ABC’s upcoming Women of the Movement anthology series from creator Marissa Jo Cerar and producers Jay-Z, Will Smith and Aaron Kaplan. Gina Prince-Bythewood is directing the pilot and is an executive producer.

This is the first casting for the six-episode season is set to debut in 2021. Women of the Movement is envisioned as an anthology, with each season focusing on a different woman. This season is based on Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement” by Devery S. Anderson.

The description: After the brutal murder of her son in the Jim Crow South, Mamie (Warren), a soft-spoken young mother in Chicago, put her own life on the line to seek justice in his name. Unwilling to let Emmett’s murder disappear from the headlines, Mamie chose to bear her pain on the world’s stage, and as a result ignited the civil rights movement as we know it today.

Warren has received critical acclaim over the past year for her starring role as Tina Turney in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway.

Deadline exclusively reported this news first.

 

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