EXCLUSIVE: P-Valley actor Nicholas G. Sims will lead a TV series based on Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, one of two Jackson State College students killed by Mississippi police in 1970.
Sims and Desmond Jackson of BVC Films have struck a life rights agreement with the Gibbs family to adapt the little-known civil rights story.
They are now in development on a pilot for a six-part limited series titled Blood on the Books that also has Amari Bacchus (Adolescence) attached to play James Earl Green, a high school student also killed in the incident.
Percival Bernard is writing the pilot and is producing along with Sims through their Pyramidal Entity banner. Jackson and Philip Lawton-Flores are also producing. Further casting and creative attachments for Blood on the Books are to follow, according to producers.
The story will chronicle the events of May 15, 1970, when Mississippi police opened fire outside dormitories at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University), killing two unarmed students and injuring 12 others, during a peaceful protest against racial injustice.
Gibbs, a 21-year-old pre-law student, husband and father, and 17-year-old high school senior and track star Green were shot and killed. At the time, police insisted they were under threat from a sniper, but an investigation found no evidence to support that. In 2021, the mayor of Jackson – the Mississippi state capital where the college is located – and a state senator publicly apologized for the shootings.
The incident took place days after national guardsmen shot and killed four students at Kent State University during a protest against the Vietnam War, but the Jackson State shootings received little press attention at the time and no convictions followed. Producers say Blood on the Books “seeks to reclaim” the legacy of the killed and injured, “and shine a light on a moment in history that was buried – not because it wasn’t important, but because it was inconvenient.”
Sims is known for roles in Hulu’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga and CBS’s East New York. He is also among the recurring cast of P-Valley Season 3, which is set to launch on Starz. Sims is repped by Stewart Talent.
Bacchus starred as the son of Ashley Walters’ DI Luke Bascombe in Netflix’s gritty crime drama Adolescence, which almost immediately became one of the streamer’s most popular original series ever after it launched in March. He’s repped by Identity Agency Group.
The post Phillip Lafayette Gibbs Story Set For TV Adaptation With ‘P-Valley’ Actor Nicholas G. Sims As Jackson State Student Killed By Police; ‘Adolescence’ Actor Amari Bacchus Also Cast appeared first on Deadline.
