Rapper/actor Common is on his way to Ava DuVernay’s Selma, to play James Bevel, the civil rights activist who helped set up 1963’s “children’s crusade” in Birmingham, Alabama, which was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement.
Common joins David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Ledisi as Mahalia Jackson, Keith Stanfield as Jimmie Lee Jackson, Henry G. Sanders playing Cager Lee, Jimmie Lee Jackson’s grandfather, Andre Holland as Andrew Young, and Tessa Thompson as Diane Nash, in a film produced by Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt’s Plan B and Christian Colson (who won an Oscar for producing Slumdog Millionaire).
Paramount Pictures is also on board the Pathe UK-backed project, which centers on the 1965 landmark voting rights campaign regarded as the peak of the civil rights movement.