As reported by Shadow and Act, ย 21-year-old actress Zendaya has just signed on to star and produce a new film titled A White Lie, about the life of Anita Hemmings who was the first black woman to graduate from Vassar College while passing as white.
Via Shadow and Act:
[Zendayaโs new film] โA White Lieโ is a film adaptation of the Karin Tanabe novel,ย โThe Gilded Years.โ
The novel, a psychological thriller, โis built around the true story ofย Anita Hemmings, a light-skinned African American woman, a descendant of slaves who passed for white so she could attend Vassar to gain access to educational opportunities,ย obviously not afforded to blacks. In the film, she is treated as a wealthy and educated white woman and sparks a romance with a rich Harvard student.
For nearly four years, Hemmings hid her true identity and was treated as an elite white woman at the school of her 
dreams until her roommate grew suspicious of her race, according to Vassarโs alumnae publication.ย After the roommateโs father hired a private investigator who discovered that Hemmings was black, the family alerted school officials weeks before graduation.ย Hemmings made an appeal to the university president and was allowed to keep her secret and to graduate in 1897, four decades before Vassar was integrated.
[In addition to] playing Hemmings, Zendaya will produce the film, along with Reese Witherspoon andย Lauren Neustadter through Witherspoonโs Hello Sunshine.
Zendaya, who launched her acting careerย in 2010 on Disneyโs โShake It Up,โ recently co-starred in โSpider-Man: Homecomingโ and will next appear in โThe Greatest Showman,โ starring Hugh Jackman as circus founder P.T. Barnum. The film also stars Zac Efron and Michelle Williams and hits theaters on December 30th.