Bishop T.D. Jakes To Executive Produce 'Winnie'

Jennifer Hudson returns to the big screen to play Winnie, the wife of former South African leader Nelson Mandela, played by Terrance Howard.

Winnie focuses on her relationship with Mandela during the political struggle under the vicious apartheid system, a system very similar to the Jim Crow laws that were enforced in America post slavery. The film just recently wrapped in Cape Town, South Africa but no release date has been set.

Bishop T. D. Jakes has now joined the project as executive producer, behind his company TDJ Enterprises/TDJ Independents.  Jakes, the pastor of a mega church in Dallas Texas with an upwards of 30,000 members, called ‘The Potter’s House’, uses his companies to spread his faith-based ideas. He has leveraged the power of his following to produce movies like Jumping The Broom and Sparkle.

Jakes’ production company has also executive produced A Million Colours, a film based on the real life accounts of a Zulu ,Muntu Ndebele, and his Afrika ner friend Norman Knox. Last month A Million Colours opened the 2012 Hollywood Black Film Festival.

The Bishop said, “Stories like Winnie and A Million Colours are important historically and socially. Collaborations like this offer us a unique ability to provide the global community a window into African culture through the creation of quality content.”

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Back to top