The story begins in 1926 in a plantation in the Deep South.Cecil Baines,the character based on Allen and portrayed by Whitaker, becomes witness to his father's murder on the cotton field for protesting his mother's rape at the hand of an overseer. Because the perpetrator was never brought to justice, he gets the message at an early age that a white man can get away with a crime and not be punished for it. To avoid the same fate as his father, Cecil skips town as a teenager, settling in Washington, DC where he lands steady work as a bartender in a hotel catering to an upscale clientele. There he also meets Gloria whom he later marries and start a family with. Cecil's sterling reputation as a polite and deferential black man eventually reaches the White House, where he takes a position where he starts as a pantry man and was later promoted to butler, and then eventually to Maître d'hôtel; and he becomes witness to many events in history particularly the long arc of the civil rights movement.

Starring:

Forest Whitaker, David Banner, Michael Rainey Jr., LaJessie Smith, Mariah Carey, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave, Aml Ameen, Clarence Williams III, John P. Fertitta, Jim Gleason, Oprah Winfrey, Isaac White, David Oyelowo, Joe Chrest

Genre:

Biography, Drama