Freedom Road: Why No Movies About the Civil Rights Movement?

"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

Between 1958 and 1970, a distinctive movement for racial justice emerged from unique circumstances in Milwaukee. A series of local leaders inspired growing numbers of people to participate in campaigns against employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schools, the membership of public officials in discriminatory organizations, welfare cuts, and police brutality.

The Milwaukee movement culminated in the dramatic—and sometimes violent—1967 open housing campaign. A white Catholic priest, James Groppi, led the NAACP Youth Council and Commandos in a militant struggle that lasted for 200 consecutive nights and provoked the ire of thousands of white residents. After working-class mobs attacked demonstrators, some called Milwaukee “the Selma of the North.” Others believed the housing campaign represented the last stand for a nonviolent, interracial, church-based movement.

Patrick Jones tells a powerful and dramatic story that is important for its insights into civil rights history: the debate over nonviolence and armed self-defense, the meaning of Black Power, the relationship between local and national movements, and the dynamic between southern and northern activism. Jones offers a valuable contribution to movement history in the urban North that also adds a vital piece to the national story.

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Blurbs:

Think you know the full story of the civil rights era? Patrick Jones's masterful study of the movement in Milwaukee will make you think again. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The Selma of the North provides a devastating rebuttal of many of the conventional narratives of the civil rights movement. Here a vibrant nonviolent movement in the de-industrializing Midwest grows into a Black Power movement led by urban youth and a white Catholic priest who use confrontational direct action to lay bare the fissures of racial inequality in the 'liberal' North.
--Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College, editor of Freedom North and Groundwork

A well-researched, well-written, and important history. Based on a rich array of sources, this book enhances our understanding of civil rights activism in the postwar urban North and establishes a useful foundation for the comparison of similar developments elsewhere in the country.
--Joe William Trotter, Jr., Carnegie Mellon University, author of Black Milwaukee

This book fills a serious gap in the literature of the civil rights revolution, joining studies on other cities in laying the groundwork on race and civil rights in the postwar urban North. Jones tells a good story, capturing events that might otherwise be lost to history.
--Arnold R. Hirsch, University of New Orleans, author of Making the Second Ghetto

The Selma of the North is an insightful and invigorating addition to the growing literature on black freedom struggles outside of the South. Jones's important and informative account writes Milwaukee back into the narrative of the civil rights-Black Power era and in the process expands our understanding of postwar America.
--Peniel E. Joseph, Brandeis University, author of Waiting Till the Midnight Hour

The Selma of the North is a riveting new story of the civil rights movement in America, a tale on par with Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery in its power and importance. Jones's magisterial research and magnetic prose illuminate the untold story of the battle for the urban north in the 1960s, a battle that shows how race has always been the Achilles heel of white progressives. This story transcends easy dichotomies of black and white, North and South, radical and reformist. How did a group called 'the Commandos' define nonviolence? How did a white Catholic priest become a 'Black Power' leader? If this is not a saga for the age of Obama, I don't know what is.
--Timothy B. Tyson, Duke University, author of Radio Free Dixie and Blood Done Sign My Name

Friday, July 13, 2007

Why No Movies About the Civil Rights Movement?

The Washington Post recently published an interesting piece about Hollywood's reluctance to make films about the civil rights movement. The article raises some important questions about race, the media and white America's unwillingness to confront its racial past (or present, for that matter).

From the article:

"That the story of the most important social and political moment in this country's history has gone untold in its dominant narrative art form is shocking on any number of levels (one being that among the movement's most effective tactics was creating media images). Here is a chapter of American life whose legacy and ramifications -- from Don Imus's idea of humor to the decisions of the current Supreme Court -- are still deeply, if painfully, felt. It's a chapter filled with charismatic characters and compelling stories. It's a chapter that -- considering the ever-increasing number of bankable African American stars -- seems not just worthy of Hollywood's attention but positively ideal for a major movie event."

"Ask studio executives why this is, and this is what you'll hear: Black-themed films don't play overseas. African American actors can't open movies. American filmgoers don't like dramas. Multi-character historical dramas are just too expensive."

Check out the whole thing here:

Waiting for 'Action!' Instead of Making Films About the Civil Rights Era, Hollywood Has Made Excuses

2 comments:

PhilJuly 13, 2007 at 1:45 PM
A shame to hear that because I think people like Spike Lee and Will Smith can make big things happen. Look at the "Dreamgirls" cast and crew, that was huge (at the Oscars at least, dunno about the box office).

I'd love to see a film on the civil rights era. Maybe they should forget big-budget Hollywood and go the independent route?

Maybe it's a bit too soon to show such a film and be commercially successful at the same time? I wonder how many white moviegoers are going to pay $10 at the theater to be reminded about how we fucked over (and still continue to) African Americans for centuries. Especially when Transformers and Die Hard 4.0 are the film's competition.
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theMatchFactoryJuly 13, 2007 at 4:35 PM
I just watched the trailer for Ghosts of Cite Soleil.

Set in a city the United Nations has declared the most dangerous place on Earth. And its got Wyclef.

As one reviewer put it, the film, "adds recognizable humanity to a culture that has seemed more lacking in hope and human decency than any other on earth."

-Justin
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"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

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Friday, July 13, 2007

Why No Movies About the Civil Rights Movement?

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