Academy Award Nominated Film, “Marshall” (PG-13) Featured at Free Movie Night

“The only way to get through a bigot’s door is to break it down.” This powerful message from the Academy Award-nominated film, “Marshall,” (PG-13), will be featured at the free showing of the film on Wednesday, February 28, 6:30 p.m., at the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, 201 N. Mulberry Street, Mount Vernon.

Starring Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, Sterling K. Brown, and James Cromwell, and directed by Reginald Hudlin, “Marshall” is based on the early career of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.  It follows the young lawyer (Boseman) sent by the NAACP to conservative Connecticut to defend a black chauffeur (Brown) charged with sexual assault and attempted murder of his white socialite employer (Hudson).

Muzzled by a segregationist court that will not recognize his out of state law license, Marshall partners with a befuddled young Jewish lawyer, Samuel Friedman (Gad). Friedman cannot quite understand how he suddenly finds himself outside his comfort zone of insurance case law and working with Marshall to build a defense for a client involved in a criminal case in an environment of racism and Anti-Semitism.  Friedman, initially scared of physical harm to himself and his family and concerned about the consequences to his local law practice following the trial, eventually forms an uncommon bond with the determined NAACP lawyer who travels from town to town fighting for defendants who are on trial “not for their deeds, but for their race.” The high profile case and the partnership with Friedman became the catalyst behind Marshall’s creation of the NAACP legal defense fund.

The film features the Academy Award and Grammy-nominated song, “Stand Up for Something,” performed by Andra Day featuring Common.

This will be the fourth time Boseman has given an epic performance as a biographical figure in a biopic. He starred as James Brown in the film, “Get on Up” (2014), Jackie Robinson in “42” (2013), and Floyd Little in “The Express” (2008).  He has also starred as the Black Panther in “Captain America: Civil War”(2016), and the current box office hit, “Black Panther” from the blockbuster Marvel franchise.

The movie is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information, call the main library at 740-392-BOOK (2665), visit www.knox.net or email communityrelations@knox.net.