Charlie Walker, San Francisco Icon Portrayed by Mike Colter in Biopic, Dies at 89

Charlie Walker, a San Francisco enterprise proprietor and social justice icon who was portrayed by Mike Colter within the 2022 biopic I’m Charlie Walker, died Thursday in his hometown, it was introduced. He was 89.

Colter, maybe finest recognized for his turns as Marvel hero Luke Cage, starred alongside Safiya Fredericks and Dylan Baker within the June launch from FAMM Movies and Shout! Studios that was directed by Patrick Gilles.

The son of sharecropper mother and father, Walker turned a profitable trucker and within the Nineteen Sixties led protests to open public development jobs to Black contractors who had been being intentionally snubbed.

He employed vans that cleaned up San Francisco Bay after a devastating 1971 oil spill, helped good buddy and then-Meeting member Willie Brown safely exit Metropolis Corridor after the 1978 assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk and have become one of many first Black workers on the San Francisco Chronicle.

Final yr, the San Francisco board of supervisors handed a decision to honor Walker by renaming a road in his Bayview-Hunters Level neighborhood as Charlie Approach.

“Charlie Walker was a real unique,” Colter mentioned in a press release. “Minimize from the identical material as males like my very own father and uncles. Males from the ’70s period that took alternative by the horns. Charlie was unapologetic about his ambition and need to carve out a spot on the planet.

“He made a manner for his household and set an instance for generations to return. He was a personality that moved by means of the world with a certainty and swagger that made folks take discover. He deserved to have his story informed. It was an honor to painting him. He won’t ever be forgotten.”

Added producer Mike Regen: “We might go on and on about Charlie’s accomplishments and the impression he had on so many, however we additionally know Charlie would inform us to get again to work. And that’s precisely what we’ll do to proceed to honor his legacy and wonderful life.” 

Survivors embrace his spouse of 63 years, Annett; daughters Charlette and Ruedell; son Charles Jr.; 11 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.