The Lifetime Original Movie, Betty & Coretta has been completed just in time for black history month.
Betty & Coretta stars Angela Bassett and Mary J. Blige. Bassett, who is known for roles in the true stories of Rosa Parks, Tina Turner, Dr. Betty Shabazz and Voletta Wallace, will play Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. Blige will play Dr. Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X.
Betty & Coretta centers on the relationship between the two women, emphasizing how they carried on as single mothers united by a commitment to social justice, and their struggle following the assassinations of their husbands.
“We’ve seen, a number of times, the story of their husbands — and rightly so,” Bassett said in a recent interview. “They were tremendous influences on our culture and our times and moving America forward. But the women — and people usually say ‘behind these men,’ but I say ‘married to these men,’ because I think they were equally as significant in their own right — very strong. Very forceful. They had their own opinions. It was a different time when they were married, in terms of a woman’s perceived place, but they were towers of thought and activism — and we get to see that.”
Read more: Who Got the Role
