Trailer Premiere: 'Blood Done Sign My Name' starring Nate Parker as Ben Chavis

Blackvoices.com presents the exclusive trailer premiere of 'Blood Done Sign My Name,' starring Nate Parker.

Written and directed by Jeb Stuart, the cast includes Rick Schroder, Afemo Omilami, Lela Rochon, Omar Benson Miller, Sahr Ngaujah, Nick Searcy, Michael Rooker, Darrin Dewitt Henson and Gattlin Griffith.

Jeb Stuart's 'Blood Done Sign My Name' is a 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. The movie 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, Tyson watched as his father, pastor of the all-white Methodist church, tried to get his congregation to accept the inevitability of integration.

Parker, who played a leading role in 'The Great Debaters' and stars in George Lucas' forthcoming Tuskegee Airmen saga, 'Red Tails,' stars as Dr. Chavis (who went on to become head of the NAACP after rising in the ranks of the Nation of Islam religion). Schroder 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 film opens on Feb.19 in limited theaters.