CBS

Angela Bassett (Rosa McCauley Parks): Angela Bassett is no stranger to portraying famous women, having played Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do With It, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe and an NAACP Image Award. Among her additional feature film credits are How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Waiting to Exhale, Contact, Strange Days, Malcolm X, for which she won an NAACP Image Award, The Score and Boyz N the Hood. Her television credits include the mini-series The Jacksons: An American Dream and the Showtime movie Ruby's Bucket of Blood.

Cicely Tyson (Leona McCauley): Ms. Tyson launched into stardom after her turn in the ground-breaking mini-series, ROOTS. She has since starred in some of the most successful and critically acclaimed motion pictures both for television and the big screen, including Fried Green Tomatoes, Mama Flora's Family and The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, for which she received an Emmy Award. Ms. Tyson received an unprecedented two Emmy Awards for her performance as Jane Pittman in the CBS television movie The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, one for Best Lead Actress and a second for Actress of the Year.

Dexter Scott King (Martin Luther King Jr.): Dexter Scott King is currently Chairman, President and CEO of The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. (The King Center) in Atlanta. The King Center is dedicated to promoting the life, work and philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1977, Dexter Scott King portrayed a civil rights movement student protester in the mini-series King, in which Cicely Tyson starred as his real-life mother, Coretta Scott King. In 1986, he produced an all-star record entitled King Holiday, a celebration of the first federal King holiday observance, which featured artists such as Whitney Houston, New Edition and Run DMC. In 1999, his voice was heard as that of his father in the Emmy-nominated animated movie Our Friend Martin, which he produced and in which Angela Bassett also participated.

Peter Francis James (Raymond "Parks" Parks) : Peter Francis James is a cast regular on the CBS daytime drama AS THE WORLD TURNS. Mr. James has a recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and guest-starring roles on both Third Watch and NY Undercover. His other television credits include The Ruby Bridges Story, Double Platinum, Long Day's Journey Into Night, PBS's Simple Justice and the mini-series Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding.

Rebecca Daniels Carr (Cameo):
CBS is proud to have Mrs. Parks' childhood friend, Rebecca Daniels Carr, better known to her friends as, "Johnnie," participate on screen in The Rosa Parks Story. Rosa and Johnnie met as fourth graders at Mrs. White's Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. They were both active in the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP throughout the Civil Rights movement and remain close friends to this day.

Julie Dash, Director
Highly respected director Julie Dash made her feature film debut with the critically acclaimed Daughters of the Dust. Her television credits include the movies Love Story, Incognito, Funny Valentines and Sax-Cantor Riff.

Angela Bassett, co-executive producer of The Rosa Parks Story, personally chose Julie Dash to direct this moving tribute to Parks. Bassett, a long-time admirer of Dash's work, felt the director could bring the sensitivity and vision needed to humanize the iconic image of Parks.

Paris Qualles, Writer
Mr. Qualles's other television movies include the Emmy Award winning The Cape; Silent Witness; and The Tuskegee Airmen, which won Emmy, Cable-ACE, Image and Peabody awards. The Ditchdigger's Daughters also won a Cable-ACE Award. Qualles was further decorated for The Color of Friendship, which won Emmy, Writers Guild, Humanitas and Image awards; as well as A House Divided, which was nominated by the Writers Guild as best Adapted Screenplay for 2000.

His episodic credits China Beach, for which he received a Writer's Guild of America nomination for Best Television Drama in 1991; Equal Justice; Lois & Clark, The New Adventures of Superman; Quantum Leap; Law & Order; Seaquest; Amen; Trials of Rosie O'Neil; The Heights and M.A.N.T.I.S.

Paris Qualles's feature films include The Inkwell, Brothers, Hannibal and Sadgwar.

Willis Edwards, Executive Producer Willis Edwards presently serves as a National Board Member of the NAACP, and Vice President of Development and Planning for the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute in Detroit. He is also a Board Member of the Rosa Parks Museum and Library in Montgomery. Other producing credits include the NAACP Image Awards, which became a nationally televised event through Edwards's foresight and leadership. Willis Edwards has been honored by numerous organizations, including the Urban League, Media Women and the NAACP.

Elaine Eason Steele, Producer
Elaine Eason Steele and Rosa Parks have been friends for forty years. THE ROSA PARKS STORY is Steele's first production. Steele has appeared on Intimate Portraits, the Lifetime Channel, and has consulted on several documentaries and an episode of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL about Rosa Parks.

Howard Braunstein and Michael Jaffe Executive Producers
The Jaffe/Braunstein partnership has produced such memorable television projects as Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, First Do No Harm, Steve Martini's The Judge, Daydream Believers: The Monkees' Story and Deliberate Intent. They also produce the series 100 Center Street and Nero Wolfe.

Yvonne Chotzen and William Jenner, Executive Producers
As State and Federal Public Defenders with more than 20 years of collective trial experience, Yvonne Chotzen and William Jenner represented crimes from hijackings and murders to fraud and conspiracy. They began producing by bringing one of their own high-profile trial cases to the small screen as the mini-series A Matter of Justice.

Chotzen and Jenner have been executive producers on the television movies Prison of Secrets, Lies He Told, My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story and Murder in the Mirror.

Angela Bassett, Executive Producer
As an actor, Angela Bassett has portrayed strong, courageous women like Tina Turner (What's Love Got to Do With It), Betty Shabazz (Malcolm X) and Rosa Parks. THE ROSA PARKS STORY is her first turn at executive producing. In 2001, she produced and starred in the TV movie Ruby's Bucket of Blood.

Pearl Devers, Producer
After many years of experience in the entertainment industry, including a Grammy-nominated turn as lead singer on a gospel album. Pearl Devers founded The Black Pearl Entertainment Company, a conglomeration of professionals that offers an outlet for various creative ventures in the entertainment business.

Devers played a pivotal role in helping bring THE ROSA PARKS STORY to life. Her relentless efforts helped enable the movie to be shot in Montgomery, Alabama, where the real-life Rosa Parks story unfolded.

Pearl Devers served as Director/Coordinator for the West Coast Region of the Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute and is Vice President for a Los Angeles chapter of the National Council Negro Women's organization.

Christine Sacani, Producer
According to producer Christine Sacani, "THE ROSA PARKS STORY is simply meant to show people that a single, small action of a single, small person can impact the world."

Sacani's other television credits include the movies South Pacific, Trapped in a Purple Haze, Mind Prey, Deep in My Heart, My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story, The Third Twin, All the Winters that Have Been, Undue Influence, Shattered Mind, and Madonna: Innocence Lost.