TV One has an epic new production underway in Atlanta.
According to TV One, the film, titled Behind the Movement, will star Meta Golding (The Hunger Games), Isaiah Washington (“The 100”), Loretta Devine (Waiting to Exhale), and Roger Guenveur Smith (American Gangster).
“Behind the Movement is a unique and fast-paced retelling of how Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat launched the history-making Montgomery Bus Boycott. The film will reveal the untold story of how a group of everyday people decided this incident was the right time to take a stand for their civil rights and demand equal treatment,” the press release reads.
Golding will be stepping into the shoes of Parks herself, with Guenveur playing her better half, Raymond Parks. Devine, Washington, and Clay have also nabbed notable roles as Jo Ann Robinson, E.D. Nixon, and Martin Luther King Jr., respectively.
“Rosa’s day as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair Department Store, in Alabama in 1955, starts as any other, but her journey home was interrupted when the evening bus driver tells the black passengers in the first row of the “Negro Section” to make room for white passengers who were without seats. Though this was common practice, that evening, Mrs. Parks decides not to comply. Knowing her rights and being fed up with the treatment of black citizens, she accepts the consequences of refusing to obey an order and is arrested. That night, Mr. E.D. Nixon, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, of which Rosa is the secretary, calls his friend Mr. Clifford Durr, a local white attorney. Once safely at home, E.D. tells Rosa that she is the perfect ‘test case’ for a Bus Boycott, an idea that had been in discussion since the bus segregation rules were continuously being abused and more and more blacks were being removed or threatened if they didn’t give up their seats to white riders,” the network writes, giving a brief summary of what to expect.
“Afraid for her safety, Rosa’s mother and her husband, try to talk her out of leading the boycott, but Rosa tells them that taking this stance is too important. By midnight, plans are put in motion to launch a boycott that, ultimately, would last more than a year and give rise to what is known today at the Civil Rights Movement.”
The film, written by Katrina M. O’Gilvie and directed by Aric Avelino will be produced for TV One by Eric Tomosunas, Keith Neal, and James Seppelfrick and Darien Baldwin for Swirl Films.
The project is currently slated to premiere in time for Black History Month 2018. Will you be watching? Sound off in the comment section below.
