{"id":28200,"date":"2022-01-08T00:43:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T00:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=28200"},"modified":"2022-01-09T12:54:28","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T12:54:28","slug":"sidney-poitier-hollywoods-first-black-leading-man-reflected-the-civil-rights-movement-on-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/sidney-poitier-hollywoods-first-black-leading-man-reflected-the-civil-rights-movement-on-screen\/","title":{"rendered":"Sidney Poitier \u2013 Hollywood\u2019s first Black leading man reflected the civil rights movement on\u00a0screen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aram Goudsouzian<\/a>, University of Memphis<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In the summer of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. introduced the keynote speaker for the 10th-anniversary convention banquet of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference<\/a>. Their guest, he said, was his \u201csoul brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has carved for himself an imperishable niche in the annals of our nation\u2019s history,\u201d King told the audience of 2,000 delegates. \u201cI consider him a friend. I consider him a great friend of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

That man was Sidney Poitier.<\/p>\n

Poitier, who died at 94 on Jan. 7, 2022<\/a>, broke the mold of what a Black actor could be in Hollywood. Before the 1950s, Black movie characters generally reflected racist stereotypes such as lazy servants and beefy mammies<\/a>. Then came Poitier, the only Black man to consistently win leading roles in major films from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. Like King, Poitier projected ideals of respectability and integrity. He attracted not only the loyalty of African Americans, but also the goodwill of white liberals.<\/p>\n

In my biography<\/a> of him, titled \u201cSidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon<\/a>,\u201d I sought to capture his whole life, including his incredible rags-to-riches arc, his sizzling vitality on screen, his personal triumphs and foibles and his quest to live up to the values set forth by his Bahamian parents. But the most fascinating aspect of Poitier\u2019s career, to me, was his political and racial symbolism. In many ways, his screen life intertwined with that of the civil rights movement \u2013 and King himself.<\/p>\n

\n\"Actor
\nSidney Poitier, center, marches during the Poor People\u2019s Campaign in Washington, D.C., in May 1968.<\/span>
\nPhoto by Chester Sheard\/Keystone\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An age of protests<\/h2>\n

In three separate columns in 1957, 1961 and 1962, a New York Daily News columnist named Dorothy Masters<\/a> marveled that Poitier had the warmth and charisma of a minister. Poitier lent his name and resources to King\u2019s causes, and he participated in demonstrations such as the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage<\/a> and the 1963 March on Washington<\/a>. In this era of sit-ins, Freedom Rides and mass marches, activists engaged in nonviolent sacrifice not only to highlight racist oppression, but also to win broader sympathy for the cause of civil rights.<\/p>\n

In that same vein, Poitier deliberately chose to portray characters who radiated goodness. They had decent values and helped white characters, and they often sacrificed themselves. He earned his first star billing in 1958, in \u201cThe Defiant Ones<\/a>,\u201d in which he played an escaped prisoner handcuffed to a racist played by Tony Curtis. At the end, with the chain unbound, Poitier jumps off a train to stick with his new white friend. Writer James Baldwin reported seeing the film<\/a> on Broadway, where white audiences clapped with reassurance, their racial guilt alleviated. When he saw it again in Harlem, members of the predominantly Black audience yelled \u201cGet back on the train, you fool!\u201d<\/p>\n

King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964<\/a>. In that same year, Poitier won the Oscar for Best Actor for \u201cLilies of the Field<\/a>,\u201d in which he played Homer Smith, a traveling handyman who builds a chapel for German nuns out of the goodness of his heart. The sweet, low-budget movie was a surprise hit. In its own way, like the horrifying footage of water hoses and police dogs attacking civil rights activists, it fostered swelling support for racial integration.<\/p>\n

\n\"Sidney
\nSidney Poitier, Katherine Houghton and Spencer Tracy in the 1967 film \u2018Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner.\u2019<\/span>
\nPhoto by RDB\/ullstein bild via Getty Images<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A better man<\/h2>\n

By the time of the actor\u2019s Southern Christian Leadership Conference speech, both King and Poitier seemed to have a slipping grip on the American public. Bloody and destructive riots<\/a> plagued the nation\u2019s cities, reflecting the enduring discontent of many poor African Americans. The swelling calls for \u201cBlack Power<\/a>\u201d challenged the ideals of nonviolence and racial brotherhood \u2013 ideals associated with both King and Poitier.<\/p>\n

When Poitier stepped to the lectern that evening, he lamented the \u201cgreed, selfishness, indifference to the suffering of others, corruption of our value system, and a moral deterioration that has already scarred our souls irrevocably.\u201d \u201cOn my bad days,\u201d he said, \u201cI am guilty of suspecting that there is a national death wish.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the late 1960s, both King and Poitier had reached a crossroads. Federal legislation was dismantling Jim Crow<\/a> in the South, but African Americans still suffered from limited opportunity. King prescribed a \u201crevolution of values,\u201d denounced the Vietnam War, and launched a Poor People\u2019s Campaign<\/a>. Poitier, in his 1967 speech for the SCLC, said that King, by adhering to his convictions for social justice and human dignity, \u201chas made a better man of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exceptional characters<\/h2>\n

Poitier tried to adhere to his own convictions. As long as he was the only Black leading man, he insisted on playing the same kind of hero. But in the era of Black Power, had Poitier\u2019s saintly hero become another stereotype? His rage was repressed, his sexuality stifled. A Black critic, writing in The New York Times, asked \u201cWhy Does White America Love Sidney Poitier So?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\"Sidney
\nPresident Barack Obama presents Academy Award-winning actor Sidney Poitier with the Medal of Freedom in 2009.<\/span>
\nPhoto by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That critic had a point: As Poitier himself knew, his films created too-perfect characters. Although the films allowed white audiences to appreciate a Black man, they also implied that racial equality depends on such exceptional characters, stripped of any racial baggage. From late 1967 into early 1968, three of Poitier\u2019s movies owned the top spot at the box office<\/a>, and a poll ranked him the most bankable star in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Each film provided a hero who soothed the liberal center. His mannered schoolteacher in \u201cTo Sir, With Love<\/a>\u201d tames a class of teenage ruffians in London\u2019s East End. His razor-sharp detective in \u201cIn the Heat of the Night<\/a>\u201d helps a crotchety white Southern sheriff solve a murder. His world-renowned doctor in \u201cGuess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner<\/a>\u201d marries a white woman, but only after winning the blessing of her parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to make movies about the dignity, nobility, the magnificence of human life,\u201d he insisted<\/a>. Audiences flocked to his films, in part, because he transcended racial division and social despair \u2013 even as more African Americans, baby boomers and film critics tired of the old-fashioned do-gooder spirit of these movies.<\/p>\n

Intertwined lives<\/h2>\n

And then, the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Sidney Poitier intersected one final time. After King\u2019s assassination on April 4, 1968, Poitier was a stand-in for the ideal that King embodied. When he presented at the Academy Awards<\/a>, Poitier won a massive ovation. \u201cIn the Heat of the Night\u201d and \u201cGuess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner\u201d captured most of the major awards. Hollywood again dealt with the nation\u2019s racial upheaval through Poitier movies.<\/p>\n

But after King\u2019s violent murder, the Poitier icon no longer captured the national mood. In the 1970s, a generation of \u201cBlaxploitation<\/a>\u201d films featured violent, sexually charged heroes. They were a reaction against the image of a Black leading man associated with Poitier. Although his career evolved, Poitier was no longer a superstar, and he no longer bore the burden of representing the Black freedom movement. Yet for a generation, he had served as popular culture\u2019s preeminent expression of the ideals of Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n

[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.<\/em> Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a>.]\"The<\/p>\n

Aram Goudsouzian<\/a>, Bizot Family Professor of History, University of Memphis<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis In the summer of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. introduced the keynote speaker for the 10th-anniversary convention banquet of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Their guest, he said, was his \u201csoul brother.\u201d \u201cHe has carved for himself an imperishable niche in the annals of our nation\u2019s history,\u201d King told the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[11104,2383,500,11106,3846,1409,4523,498,11105,11107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28200"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28218,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28200\/revisions\/28218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}