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Every week on Lifetime Television, Donzaleigh (don-za-lay) Abernathy can be seen portraying “SARA”, the 30 something freedom-fighting mother of Rene Jackson and as the 70ish widowed senior citizen mom to her adult daughter Rene. Donzaleigh’s role on Lifetime’s critically acclaimed dramatic series, “ANY DAY NOW” has proven to be extremely rewarding and exceptionally creative for the actress because she has been allowed to create a character each week at different stages in its’ life. Donzaleigh says that the truthful essence of her character lies in her understanding of human nature.
Donzaleigh, who prefers to be called by her first name, has starred in several award winning television movies. She was the leading lady in HBO’s “Don King: Only in America” which won an Emmy Award for Best Movie and Best Screenplay as well as a Golden Globe for the leading Man, Ving Rhames. In “The Tempest,” Shakespeare’s last play and NBC’s largest foreign release, Donzaleigh plays the beautiful slave that saves the life of her master, Peter Fonda and gives him the gift of magic. Fonda was nominated for a Golden Globe for this project. Donzaleigh also starred in the civil rights drama, “Murder in Mississippi” which won the Director Guild Of America Award for her director Roger Young, “Miss Evers Boys”, which won Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actor’s Guild awards for the lead, Alfre Woodard and Bill Wittliff’s western, “Ned Blessing”.
In the short lived critically successful series, “EZ Streets”, Donzaleigh co-starred as the powerful sexy politician, then she would leave the set and rush to her other series, “Dangerous Minds” where she played a hard hearted crack addicted mother to one of Annie Potts’ students. She has only guest starred on a few television shows such as, “Chicago Hope”, “NYPD Blue” and “The Pretender.”
In between her filming career Donzaleigh pursues her literary skills, which are a major part of her educational pursuits. She has authored a history book entitled, “Partners To History”, about Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy and the American Civil Rights Movement. Although the book is a coffee table picture essay of American History, the text, which is equal in scope is as compelling as the photography. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a childhood friend, has written the forward in honor of the relationship between the Kennedy’s and the Civil Rights Movement.
Revealing her life proved to be extremely challenging to a preferably private Donzaleigh, who as the youngest daughter of Ralph David Abernathy was born and raised in the public forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. Donzaleigh felt a moral obligation to accurately tell the facts of this American struggle for
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justice, equality and human dignity for people of color, so that future generations and historians will truthfully know and understand the courage, sacrifices, prayers and victories of these non-violent warriors. Her book chronicles the loving friendship of the two men closest to her in her youth, her father and his dearest friend Martin, from the days prior to the Montgomery Bus Boycott to Martin’s death to Ralph’s leadership of the Poor Peoples Campaign to Ralph’s death.
In addition to her career as an actress, Donzaleigh is involved with several social causes as an environmentalist, advocate for the AIDS Crisis and as
a founding member and former VP of the Board of Trustees of New Roads Schools. She is profiled in the book, “No Mountain High Enough."
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