Colman Domingo

The first trailer for Rustin, Netflix’s upcoming film about the life and work of Bayard Rustin, the openly gay Black civil rights leader and architect of 1963’s March on Washington, promises to put an end to the history of erasure around the visionary’s legacy.

Released Monday, on the official 60th anniversary of the historic freedom march, the first look captures the passionate, profound and often tumultuous journey of one of the country’s most significant civil rights activists, socialists, pacifists, labor unionists and gay rights advocates. Directed by DGA award and five-time Tony winner George C. Wolfe, Domingo — in his first leading feature film role — embodies the radical voice and fixture of the 20th-century fight for equality and justice in American democracy.

Rustin was an organizer who advised Martin Luther King Jr. on the historic march and gathering — an eight-week endeavor, according to the trailer. His refusal to apologize for who he was, what he believed in and who he loved, alongside his instincts to challenge authority (even in the communities his work most served), is captured in the powerful two-minute teaser.