Howard Ellsworth Rollins Jr. was an American stage, film, and television actor. Howard Rollins was known for his role as Andrew Young in 1978's King, George Haley in the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the 1981 film Ragtime, Captain Davenport in the 1984 film A Soldier's Story, and as Virgil Tibbs on the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–1994).

King is a 1978 American television miniseries based on the life of Martin Luther King Jr., the American civil rights leader. It aired for three consecutive nights on NBC from February 12 through 14, 1978.