Landmark Films About the Fight for Racial Equality

Unavoidably, it happened that I was overseas on November 4th, a development that infuriated me. Though I got my vote in early, I so wanted to be on my native soil to witness what I hoped and expected would be a transformative moment in our country's history.

In hindsight though, I wouldn't think of trading the almost surreal experience of pulling an all-nighter in an Italian hotel room to watch the election outcome. Because the next morning, I had the somewhat eerie but also exhilarating sense that people were actually looking at me differently. And of course I felt different too. When Italians I encountered realized I was American, I received spontaneous, joyful shouts of "Obama!" Then it struck me: with one concerted, collective action over the course of a single day, our national reputation had received an enormous bounce. Suddenly, it seemed, we were the land of hope and limitless possibility again, and once more, I felt proud to be an American.

In characterizing Obama's victory, the international press focused less on the repudiation of eight years of corrosive Republican rule, more on the significance of the most powerful country on earth electing an African-American to its highest office. And after all the Republican bashing we've heard-however justified -- this felt all the more appropriate.

While our younger citizens turned out in record numbers to help push Barack over the top, I had to wonder whether they (or indeed their parents) fully understood that those tears coursing down Jesse Jackson's cheeks on election night did not materialize just from sheer joy, but from a more complex and painful awareness of all the oppression, bloodshed and suffering that led up to this momentous breakthrough.

With this in mind, I surveyed www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com, and selected the best films, documentaries and mini-series that each in their way illuminate the centuries-old struggle for racial freedom and equality in America.

Of course, prior to the 1960's, race portrayals in movies were mostly confined to servants and railroad porters. Only with the advent of the Civil Rights movement did the film industry dare address the black experience. At this point, Sidney Poitier emerged as the first black movie star, whose roles advanced a new image of the black man, reflecting intelligence, pride, and dignity.

Daniel Petrie's "A Raisin In The Sun" (1961) provided an ideal star vehicle for Poitier's explosive talent. Sidney portrays an ambitious, tightly coiled young man counting on his mother's small nest-egg to invest in a business which could lift his family out of their dead-end existence. The actor projects barely suppressed rage as he pleads with his resolute mother (Claudia McNeil), who wants to use the money to buy a new home. We feel Poitier's raw desperation as he sees his one chance to better himself slipping away. Watch this moving piece for Poitier's intense performance, and McNeil's equally fiery and arresting turn as the family matriarch.

Three years later, director Michael Roemer would release an independent film called "Nothing But A Man", addressing the challenge of black men sustaining loving relationships when discrimination and feelings of futility consume them with anger. Duff (Ivan Dixon), a black railroad worker, meets Josie (Abbey Lincoln), a shy preacher's daughter. They fall in love, but soon Duff's frustration with his prospects boils over, challenging the relationship. With grace and feeling, this lean, under-exposed film details how the couple navigates these choppy waters to find a measure of happiness. Look for the late Julius Harris, who's superb as Duff's failed, drunken father.

In the 1970s, television would do as much as feature films to advance the understanding of black history in this country. Perhaps best remembered is the wildly successful, landmark adaptation of Alex Haley's novel "Roots" into a six-part, ten hour mini-series in 1977, which took viewers back to the dawn of the slave trade that first brought blacks to our shores in bondage. Over thirty years after first airing, this remarkable work has lost none of its searing impact.