Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor might, just might, be set to meet civil rights hero Rosa Parks in the upcoming Doctor Who series.
Exhibit A: earlier this year fans posted pictures of a vehicle on the Doctor Who set that closely resembled the bus on which Parks famously refused to give up her seat for a white man. It was this protest of segregated transport that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956 and the following equality movement.
And now comes Exhibit B. Recently, Whovians on Twitter noticed that the Spotlight CV page for actor David Rubin said he was due to play “Raymond Parkes” (sic) in Doctor Who series 11. Could this be a reference to Raymond Parks, the husband of the civil rights campaigner?
Not only that, but another actor, Aki Omoshaybi, was listed to play Fred Grey on his Spotlight page, according to the screenshot below (note: we can’t confirm this one is genuine). This character could be Fred David Gray, the lawyer who defended Rosa Parks.
Yes, both these characters’ names were misspelt and the roles have now been removed from the actors' respective pages (assuming the above screengrabs were correct in the first place), but isn’t this too much evidence to ignore?
After all, there have been indications from way back that new Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall could be interested in returning to the traditional educational history stories of classic Doctor Who. And wouldn’t it make sense to pair the first female Doctor with another inspirational woman?
The BBC declined to comment.
Doctor Who returns to BBC1 this autumn
