Tomorrow is the presentation of the Rosa Parks movie. IN today's Columbus Dispatch there was an article about the movie which stars ANGELA BASSETT & Dexter King, son of MLK playing his dad.
http://www.dispatch.com/features-sto...2/1107887.html
Unlikely hero
Civil-rights pioneer wouldn't have thought she'd inspire TV shows
Saturday, February 23, 2002
Tim Feran
Dispatch TV-Radio Critic
Almost 50 years ago, a quiet black woman named Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on a bus to a white man.
This weekend, a veritable Rosa Parks festival arrives through the CBS series Touched by an Angel, featuring a cameo by the civil-rights heroine, and the made-for-TV movie The Rosa Parks Story.
Angela Bassett, who stars in the CBS movie, understands why the actions of the low-key Parks have spoken to people throughout the world.
"I'm so proud of her and so grateful to her for the sacrifice she made of her life to black America," Bassett said recently. "She was probably unaware of how important she was to the world and how much an inspiration it rang out beyond Montgomery -- to the far places of South Africa, Russia; all around the world.
"Really, I don't think there are words enough to express how thankful we all should be."
In December 1955, Parks boarded a bus in segregated Montgomery, Ala., and took a seat near the front -- instead of the back, where blacks were expected to sit.
Her simple protest sparked a 381-day bus boycott, a nonviolent effort partly led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (portrayed by his son, Dexter Scott King).
While her involvement in the civil-rights movement is well-known, the movie also looks at her personal life and the influences that shaped her.
"I think it stays pretty close to the story," Bassett said. "If anyone was very reasonable and calm and reserved, it was Mrs. Parks. To jazz her up, people would have gone screaming into the street."
The two women met briefly in 1994, when both were attending a Southern Christian Leadership Conference event in Atlanta.
"It never crossed my mind they would do her story and I would play it," the actress said. "I didn't have the vision to see down the road that far. My impression, though, just from meeting her is that she's a very giving, very kind, very unselfish, very sweet individual."
Bassett read biographies of Parks, "a frail 89," and noted similarities in their upbringings.
In particular, both had parents with high standards.
"My mother had very strong ideas for my sister and me, especially about the role of education," Bassett said. "I remember I got a C on my report card once, and I thought I could tell my mother that it wasn't so bad, that C just meant average. Well, I presented my argument, and she looked me in the eyes and said, 'I don't have average children.'
"It affected me, and I remembered that for the rest of my growing up and education. Being average, being mediocre was not an option that you could be proud of."
To prepare for the role, Bassett watched film footage of Parks from 1955 "over and over again -- hopefully to get her rhythm, her carriage. It doesn't hurt to be a Southern girl myself."
Also aiding her performance was the setting: Instead of shooting the film on a studio lot in California or in a less-expensive locale such as Canada, the producers took the cast to Alabama.
"The air is different; the people are different; the sensibility is different," Bassett said. "Canada doesn't have the history of southern America.
"To be able to stand in the spot where Mrs. Parks stood before she got on the bus, I had a sense of pride and power and empowerment in knowing this is where it began, where a great deal of my freedom began, why I am able to come back as an actor and re-create this moment -- because she said no in that place.
"It was going back and paying homage to it and being proud of it."
ROSA PARKS -- Sunday 2/24/02
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