Colman Domingo Is Civil Rights Activist Bayard Rustin in Netflix’s Powerful Rustin Trailer

Colman Domingo draws attention to a major figure in the American civil rights movement in his latest film.

On Thursday, Netflix released a new trailer for Rustinbiographical film in which he stars Euphoria actor Domingo, 53, as Bayard Rustin, a man who worked as one of the main organizers of the March on Washington in August 1963.

The trailer opens with Rustin seeking allies in his plans to launch a large-scale march on Washington, DC, encountering hesitation from older black activists and enthusiasm from younger people – especially when he announces that Martin Luther King Jr. (Aml Ameen) take part in the campaign.

Rustin has a few allies — activist Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock) suggests that Rustin’s involvement in the event will put the participants in danger. The trailer presents Rustin as a controversial man at the time, particularly for living as an openly gay man in the early 1960s.

The trailer ends with Rustin hoping people will turn out en masse for the March on Washington, which the National Archives identifies as “the largest civil rights demonstration in United States history.”

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Poster for Netflix’s ‘Rustin’.

Netflix

The real Rustin, who died in 1987 at age 75, “challenged authority, never apologized for who he was, what he believed, or who he wanted. And he didn’t back down,” according to the film’s official synopsis. “He made history, and in turn he was forgotten.”

The film “long overdue shines a light on an extraordinary man who, alongside giants like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Ella Baker, dared to imagine a different world and inspired a movement to march toward freedom,” the synopsis reads.

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(L to R) Michael Potts as Cleve Robinson, Aml Ameen as Martin Luther King, Chris Rock as NAACP Exec. Dir. Roy Wilkins and Glynn Turman as Philip Randolph in ‘Rustin’.

David Lee/Netflix

Rustin directed by George C. Wolfe (Oh Rainey’s Black Bottom), and written by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black (Milk). Barack Obama and Michelle Obama worked on the film as executive producers. Netflix previously released the first trailer for the film in August, exactly 50 years after the historic August 1963 March on Washington that Rustin helped organize. The event is perhaps best known for King Jr.’s famous speech. “I Have a Dream”.

In addition to Domingo, Rock and Ameen, the film also stars Glynn Turman, Gus Halper, CCH Pounder, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Johnny Ramey, Michael Potts and Audra McDonald.

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Aml Ameen as Martin Luther King and Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin in ‘Rustin’.

Parrish Lewis/Netflix

The National Archives credits Rustin and a staff of 200 volunteers with organizing the March on Washington in just two months, even though politicians like then-South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond publicly denounced him in the U.S. Senate in the weeks leading up to the event, per The Washington Post.

Rustin is in select theaters on November 3rd and will begin streaming on Netflix on November 17th.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education