Tony Award-Winning Columbia College Chicago Alum Tonya Pinkins To Star in ABC’s ‘The Women of the Movement’

Tonya Pinkins

Columbia College Chicago alum Tonya Pinkins ’96 — Tony Award-winning star of such Broadway musicals as Caroline, or Change and Jelly’s Last Jam — will co-star in ABC’s upcoming limited series The Women of the Movement, according to a report from the show-business news site Playbill. Pinkins will portray the grandmother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black Chicago youth whose 1955 murder was a signal event in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Inspired by Devery S. Anderson’s book Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement, the series centers on Emmett’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley (played, as previously announced, by Tony nominee Adrienne Warren) and her life spent seeking justice for her son. The six-episode series is from creator-writer Marissa Jo Cerar and is executive produced by Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Aaron Kaplan. Filming begins this month in Mississippi.