Rosa Parks Movie 'Behind the Movement' on Alabama Bus Boycott Airs Sunday (Watch Trailer)
The story of Rosa Parks will be told in a new way when "Behind the Movement" airs on Sunday.
The made-for-TV movie will premiere on TV One at 7 p.m. and follows the Montgomery Bus Boycott that took place from 1955 to 1956.
Parks, a black Christian activist, boarded a city bus along with three black men and sat in a section reserved for white people. The bus driver, in accordance with city law, asked them to move to the back of the bus. The three men complied, but Parks refused.
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Parks, then 42, was subsequently arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for her actions.
The boycott and civil rights movement, led by figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bus segregation in Alabama was unconstitutional.
Actress Meta Golding ("The Hunger Games") stars as Parks in the movie and said she spent time in church to research the historical figure.
"Mrs. Parks was a woman of faith and was very active in her church community, so I went to a lot of old-school churches and it was really amazing," Golding said in an interview with The New York Post this week. "Because I always think it's so interesting — the way people worship. Especially in the civil rights movement. Historically, black churches were leaders. [In my regular life] I go to a nondenominational church — so this was definitely a new experience."
Parks died at age 92 in 2005, but published a book, Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation, almost 10 years before her death that detailed how her faith impacted her decision to participate in the bus boycott.
"I felt the Lord would give me the strength to endure whatever I had to face. God did away with all my fear," Parks wrote. "It was time for someone to stand up — or, in my case, sit down. I refused to move."
Actress Golding said she believes it's important for people to witness the modern retelling of Parks' story in order to understand important moments in history.
"I felt like, 'We've gotta get this right for younger people who might watch this in school,'" she said. "You want to be able to tell the story right, because you know you're affecting how people will see our own history."
Aside from Golding, 'Behind the Movement" stars Isaiah Washington as Edgar "E.D." Nixon; Loretta Devine as Jo Ann Robinson; Roger Guenveur Smith as Raymond Parks; and Lashaun Clay as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Watch the film's trailer below:
