Keith Beauchamp Papers

Keith A. Beauchamp is an African American filmmaker and lecturer. He is known for his creative work and activism regarding African American civil rights, and especially for work related to the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till.

Beauchamp was born in 1972 near Augusta, Georgia, and grew up in Louisiana. He studied Criminal Justice at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 1999, Beauchamp founded Till Freedom Come Productions and began traveling among New York City, Chicago, and locations in Mississippi, investigating the murder of Emmett Till. On May 10th, 2004, the United States Department of Justice re-opened the Emmett Till murder case, citing Beauchamp’s documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till as a factor in their decision and the starting point for their investigation.

In 2007, Beauchamp begin his collaboration with the FBI’s Civil Rights Cold Case Initiative, producing documentaries on unsolved civil rights murders. Other works by Till Freedom Come Productions include Wanted Justice: Johnnie Mae Chappell (2009); If I Die Tonight (2009); and the BET Her series Exceptional Black Women (2019). Beauchamp also served as executive producer and host of Investigation Discovery’s crime reality series The Injustice Files (2011-2014), and screenwriter and producer of the feature film Till (2022).

Sources

Jackson, Angelique. “Whoopi Goldberg, Danielle Deadwyler to Star in Movie About Emmett Till’s Mother Directed by Chinonye Chukwu.” Variety online. July 23, 2021. https://variety.com/2021/film/news/whoopi-goldberg-emmett-till-movie-danielle-deadwyler-1235026380/

Till Freedom Come Productions. “Production Portfolio,” accessed November 22, 2021. https://www.tillfreedomcome.com/

Authors: Rory Grennan and Haley McGuyre