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Rosa McCauley Parks (Angela Bassett):
The quiet seamstress from Montgomery, Alabama who has been called the "Mother of the modern Civil Rights Movement." A kind, warm and humble woman, Mrs. Parks proved to be the figure the NAACP had been searching for. Her character was beyond reproach, and her arrest served as the perfect platform to launch a successful bus boycott, which lasted more than a year and galvanized an entire race to stand up and be counted.
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Leona McCauley (Cicely Tyson):
Rosa Parks's mother. Known for being a devout Christian, a strict disciplinarian and a true believer in the power of a strong education, Leona was imbued with an indefatigable sense of pride and integrity. Her own father had been a slave, and had lived his life by these principles, which Leona in turn passed on to her children.
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Raymond Parks (Peter Francis James):
Rosa Parks's husband, who was known only as "Parks." Friends say they have never heard her refer to him by his first name. A successful, refined and handsome barber in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks had a fire within that drew Rosa to him. He believed passionately in the advancement of the colored man, and Rosa admired his spirit and tenacity as he dared to have "Negro" newspapers in his barbershop as well as recite activist poetry such as that written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, with abandon.
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Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (Dexter Scott King) :
If Rosa Parks is the "Mother of the modern Civil Rights Movement," then it can be argued that this minister from the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta Georgia, is its father. Born January 15, 1929 to a schoolteacher and Baptist minister, King was a graduate of both Morehouse College in Georgia and Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. At the time of Mrs. Parks's arrest, King was the new minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Because of his position, King was launched into the spotlight as the spiritual leader and spokesman for an outraged community. He would carry the torch for the American Civil Rights movement through the next decade, even being honored with the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964, until his death by an assassin's gun on April 4, 1968.
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James Blake (Sonny Shroyer):
Thirteen years before that fateful night in December 1955, this same bus driver ordered Rosa to re-board his bus from the rear, even though it meant walking through the pouring rain to do so. When Rosa protested, he became adamant. Finally capitulating, she exited the bus and, rather than waiting for her to enter through the back, Blake promptly closed both doors and drove off, leaving Mrs. Parks to walk home more than five miles in the rain.
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Rebecca Daniels Carr (Tonea Stewart): Rebecca, better known as
"Johnnie," and Rosa were best friends from the fourth grade when they met
at the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. Johnnie and Rosa
reconnected when Rosa became active in the Montgomery chapter of the
NAACP. It was Johnnie who convinced Rosa to join the then-budding
organization. Mrs. Carr and Mrs. Parks remain friends to this day. The
real Johnnie Carr has a cameo role in the film as
the woman who will "not get on [the bus]
until Jim Crow gets off!"
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Edgar Daniel Nixon (Von Coulter) :
One of Mr. Nixon’s greatest causes was voter registration among African Americans. He insisted that every member of his staff at the NAACP be registered to vote. However, the exam, which was only given to blacks, was difficult and the registrar was not obligated to tell those trying to register why they failed. A Pullman Porter by trade, and active in the sleeping Car Porter’s Union, “E.D.,” as he was known, had little formal education. He was a dignified, charismatic man and the president of the Montgomery Chapter of the NAACP in the 1940s when Rosa officially joined as his secretary.
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Fred Gray (Ken Hairston) :
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Gray is a graduate of Nashville Christian Institute, Nashville, Tennessee; Alabama State University, Montgomery, Alabama; and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
At 24, he was only a year out of law school when he represented Rosa Parks as her case first went before a judge. He would go on to become Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s first Civil Rights attorney and a pillar in the movement. Gray's career has spanned more than forty years. He continues to practice today and is currently President of the Alabama State Bar Association, the first African American to hold that position.
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