Haskins leading the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship in 1966. In 2004, Howard worked on the script for a film project with Morgan Freeman based on the 761st Tank Battalion, the first black armored unit to see combat in World War II. Howard also wrote a screenplay called Factor X, which Ridley Scott was attached to produce in 2006. In 2014, Howard completed the screenplay of a movie about the Soviet Airwomen of the Great Patriotic War called Night Witches and financed by the grandson of Boris Yeltsin. He co-wrote and co-produced the 2019 Harriet Tubman biographical film film Harriet, for which he also received a "story by" credit. On November 12, 2019, Howard's Black Panther Party script Power to the People was acquired by Paramount Pictures with George Tillman Jr. in talks to direct and Ben Affleck producing. Death Howard died from heart failure in Miami on January 27, 2023, one day shy of his 71st birthday. Awards and nominations References External links Official site 1952 births 2023 deaths 20th-century African-American writers 20th-century American screenwriters 21st-century African-American writers 21st-century American screenwriters African-American film producers African-American screenwriters African-American television writers Deaths from congestive heart failure Princeton University alumni Screenwriters from California Screenwriters from Virginia Writers from Norfolk, Virginia Writers from Vallejo, California