Keith Beauchamp

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Keith Beauchamp attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he studied Criminal Justice with the intention of becoming a Civil Rights Attorney. As a young boy in Baton Rouge, Beauchamp had his share of run-ins with racism, but it wasn’t until an incident where he was assaulted by an undercover police officer after dancing with a white classmate at a party that he felt compelled to fight racism. In the fall of 1997, Beauchamp relocated from Baton Rouge to New York, where he quickly found work at a company founded by childhood friends focused on music video and film production. It was here that he could pursue another dream of becoming a filmmaker. And through this feat, attempt to remedy some of the past and present injustices that plague communities here in the United States and abroad.

Beauchamp honed his behind-the-camera skills during the day and spent his evenings researching and locating anyone who might have information on the Emmett Till case, a story told to him when he was just ten years old. It was at this tender age that Beauchamp saw a Jet magazine that contained a picture of Emmett Till’s dead body and was told the story behind the horrific murder. In 1999, Beauchamp founded Till Freedom Come Productions, a company devoted to socially significant projects that can both teach and entertain. He has devoted the past twenty-nine years of his life to telling the story of Emmett Till and has traveled extensively between New York, Chicago, and Mississippi to investigate the historic murder. During this journey, Beauchamp befriended the late Mrs. Mamie Till Mobley, who took him under her wings and inspired him to join her ongoing efforts to seek justice in her son’s case. As a result of their close relationship, Beauchamp would produce and direct the award-winning documentary "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till", while persistently lobbying both the State of Mississippi and the Federal Government to reopen the Emmett Till murder case.

On May 10th, 2004, the United States Department of Justice re-opened the nearly 50-year-old murder case citing Beauchamp’s documentary, which was later released in 2005, as both a major factor in their decision and the starting point for their investigation. In 2005, Emmett Till’s body was exhumed, and in 2006, the FBI handed over evidence to the Leflore County District Attorney in Mississippi. Sadly, in 2007, a Mississippi Grand Jury decided not to indict the remaining suspects in the case. That same year, Beauchamp began his collaboration with the FBI’s Till- inspired Civil Rights “Cold Case” Initiative, producing documentaries on other unsolved civil rights murders in hopes of helping federal agents with their investigations that could bring remaining perpetrators to justice. After what would be almost a two-decade-long friendship, producers Barbara Broccoli, Fred Zollo, EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg, and Beauchamp would team up to finally produce the greatly anticipated theatrical feature film, "Till", directed by award-winning director Chinonye Chukwu.

Beauchamp has been featured on "60 Minutes", ABC World News Tonight 'Person of the Week', MSNBC, "Good Morning America", CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera, as well as in hundreds of publications around the world, including The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Associated Press, the Chicago Sun-Times and Time Magazine to name a few. Beauchamp’s past works include TV One's "Murder in Black and White" hosted by Rev. Al Sharpton and the award-winning crime reality series, "The Injustice Files", produced by CBS News where he served as the Executive Producer and Host. Beauchamp is also a frequent lecturer at colleges and universities around the country, sharing his deep knowledge and experiences in civil rights history and documentary filmmaking.