Celebs Who've Played Civil Rights Icons

These actors stepped into historical shoes.

Jackie Robinson as himself - Three years after joining the Brooklyn Dodgers — breaking Major League Baseball’s long-standing color barrier — Jackie Robinson found himself playing, well, himself in the biographical film The Jackie Robinson Story in 1950. After retiring in ‘57, the baseball Hall of Famer served on the board of the NAACP and co-founded the Freedom National Bank — a Black-owned and operated commercial bank based in Harlem. (Photo: Courtesy of RKO Radio Pictures, Inc)
Angela Bassett as Betty Shabazz \r - A year before her Oscar nod for playing Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It, Angela Bassett starred in 1992’s Malcolm X as Betty Shabazz, wife of the slain Black nationalist leader. Three years later, she reprised her role — albeit a cameo — as Mrs. Shabazz for the film Panther, about the Black Panther Party.\r\r\r\r(Photo: Courtesy of Largo International)
Denzel Washington as Malcolm X - Playing the role of slain Black nationalist leader Malcolm X wasn’t a stretch for Denzel Washington, having played him on stage in the play When the Chickens Come Home to Roost. In Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, Washington earned an Oscar nomination.\r(Photo: Courtesy of Largo International)Cicely Tyson as Coretta Scott King - In the ‘70s, if any actress was going to play Coretta Scott King, it was going to be Cicely Tyson. In King, the Oscar-nominated actress played the wife of the civil rights icon. The pairing of Tyson and Paul Winfield played off the cinematic magic the two created playing husband and wife in the 1972 film Sounder (for which Tyson garnered a Best Actress Oscar nomination).(Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection)

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Jackie Robinson as himself - Three years after joining the Brooklyn Dodgers — breaking Major League Baseball’s long-standing color barrier — Jackie Robinson found himself playing, well, himself in the biographical film The Jackie Robinson Story in 1950. After retiring in ‘57, the baseball Hall of Famer served on the board of the NAACP and co-founded the Freedom National Bank — a Black-owned and operated commercial bank based in Harlem. (Photo: Courtesy of RKO Radio Pictures, Inc)

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