Lucy Hale is to star in Spike Lee’s new civil rights drama ‘Sons of the South’.
The 29-year-old actress will appear alongside Lucas Till in the upcoming movie, which is based on the Bob Zellner autobiography ‘The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement.’, according to Variety.
The tale is set in the 1960s and tells the story of Zellner, an Alabama native and grandson of a Ku Klux Klan member, who begins researching civil rights to the dismay of his professors and classmates at a small church school.
Zellner tells of how he joined ranks with the black students who were protesting and "sometimes dying to challenge the Southern ‘way of life’ he had been raised on but rejected".
The novel won the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award and decades later, it’s author is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights.
The ‘Pretty Little Liars’ star will play Carol Ann, Zellner’s college girlfriend while Lucas, 28, will portray Zellner.
Lex Scott Davis has also joined the cast, along with Julia Ormond as Virginia Durr, Cedric the Entertainer as Reverend Ralph Abernathy.
Sharonne Lanier will play Rosa Parks in the film, while Brian Dennehy plays Zellner’s grandfather. Chaka Forman is portraying his activist father Jim Forman.
Lee is directing from his own screenplay and producing alongside his long-time editor Barry Alexander Brown.
‘Sons of the South’ has begun shooting in Montgomery, Alabama – where many of the real-life events took place.
Colin Bates, Eve Pomerance, Bill Black, Stan Erdreich, River Bend Pictures are also producing.
Lucy Hale to star in Sons of the South
