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MARY J. BLIGE MAKES HISTORY PLAYING BETTY SHABAZZ

‘OF COURSE, it was intimidating” to play a character as imposing as Betty Shabazz and do it opposite an actress as accomplished as Angela Bassett, says Mary J. Blige.

It was also, she says, “an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.”

Blige plays Shabazz, wife of the late Malcolm X, and Bassett plays Coretta Scott King, wife of the late Martin Luther King Jr., in “Betty and Coretta,” which premieres Saturday night at 8 on Lifetime.

The movie chronicles three decades of friendship that began after each woman’s husband was assassinated in the 1960s.

Little-known as that story may be, Blige says it’s important for at least two major reasons.

The first, she says, is that “it shows how two women who were married to powerful men stepped up to keep their work going.

“They had a major impact on the civil rights movement — because if they didn’t come together the way they did, would their husbands still be as well-known today? Yes, we’d know who Martin Luther King was, but there wouldn’t be a Martin Luther King Day. Malcolm X would not be as respected as he has become.”

Second and equally compelling, says Blige, it shows the human side of two women who are more commonly known as civil rights icons.

“They haven’t always gotten their due, just as other women like Myrlie Evers have not,” says Blige. “And part of that is we don’t remember the human side, that after the assassinations, they had to raise their children without fathers.”

“Betty and Coretta” spends considerable time exploring the lives and relationships of the two women outside the public spotlight.

“Before I took this role and started doing the research,” says Blige, “I didn’t know that Betty was the one who was always joking around, trying to keep things light and upbeat, give it a positive tone.

“You see the human side. The things you didn’t know.”

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