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When They See Us is powerful and emotional. Yesterday Ava Duvernay premiered her new series based on the Central Park Five case in Harlem at the World famous Apollo Theater to a packed house. The series felt like it was 100% for us. The way Ava tells this story visually is spectacular and you really feel like you’re thrown back into New York City in the 80s and 90s. It’s emotionally exhausting at times and it really makes you feel bad for what happened to Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise. On April 19th, 1989 five teenage boys between the ages of 14 and 16 years old, were locked up and accused of raping a woman in Central Park, with very little evidence and forced confessions the boys were sentenced to jail When They See Us dives deeper in to how one night changed the lives of so many people.

Especially the parents of the Central Park Five, I sat down with 3 of the actors who play parents in When They See Us for a conversation about a parent’s love and being apart of such an important and powerful series heading to Netflix on May 31st. Michael K Williams and Marsha Stephanie Blake who play Linda and Bobby McCray parents of Antron McCray, and Niecy Nash who plays the mother of Korey Wise

For me my mom raised me, I knew how much she loved me when I looked her in her eyes when I was going through my addiction and I told her to let me go. She said no.” He said fighting back tears. “A mother love, a parent’s love and what they do for their kids, I just wanted to make sure that when you looked at Bobby, on paper it looks like he didn’t care and he left at the most wack time you can leave. However, when we spoke to Miss Linda, we had the pleasure of speaking with Miss Linda before she passed and she spoke about Bobby with so much love and compassion that I knew I had to go deeper in the portrayal of Bobby.”

Bobby was crippled by guilt after being used as a pawn to convince his son to make a false confession to the cops so he started to think that maybe it was better for him to stay away rather than remain in the family’s life.

When They See Us premieres on Netflix on May 31st.

Michael K Williams Tears Up Talking About A Mother’s Love & When They See Us | Extra Butter  was originally published on globalgrind.com