The trailer for Blood Done Sign My Name.
Jeb Stuart’s Blood Done Sign My Name, is an epic civil rights drama based on the acclaimed book of the same name by prize-winning author and scholar Timothy Tyson. Part autobiography and part history of the civil rights movement in the south, the book, which has sold over 150,000 copies and has been hailed as “one of the most powerful meditation on race in America” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, recounts the small town murder of Henry Marrow, a 23 year-old black Vietnam veteran, who was shot and beaten to death by a prominent white businessman and his grown sons. In response to the crime, and the sham trial that followed, many young African American men took to the streets, engaging in riots and vandalism. However, Ben Chavis, Marrow’s cousin, decided that the best way to protest the injustice would be to organize a peaceful march on the state capitol. What began as a small group of outraged friends and relatives grew to a crowd of thousands over the three-day, fifty-mile trek to Raleigh. Ten years old at the time, Tim Tyson watched as his father, pastor of the all-white Methodist church, tried to get his congregation to accept the inevitability of integration.
Nate Parker, (who played a leading role in The Great Debators and stars in George Lucas’ forthcoming Tuskegee Airmen saga, Red Tails,) stars as Dr. Ben Chavis, (who went on to become head of the NAACP). Golden Globe-winner Rick Schroder, (Lonsesome Dove, NYPD Blue) stars as Tyson’s father, Reverend Vernon Tyson. Stuart, (screenwriter on such classic action thrillers as Die Hard and The Fugitive), is a North Carolina native and, more importantly, the son of a white Southern minister who lived through the very events portrayed in the film. The large ensemble cast includes, Afemo Omilami (Forest Gump), Lela Rochon (Waiting to Exhale), Omar Benson Miller (Miracle at St. Anna), Nick Searcy (Cast Away), Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), Darrin Dewitt Henson (Stomp the Yard) and Gattlin Griffith (The Changeling) as the young Tim Tyson.