February is Black History Month, which means it is time to refresh one’s knowledge on the race’s rich and often dark history. The following films depict some of the vast history backing black people and their culture. Some are inspired and some are true stories modified for the silver screen.
“Hidden Figures” (2016)
“Hidden Figures” is a true story about the first three African American women at NASA. Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) helped launch astronaut John Glenn into orbit, an enormous accomplishment that secured the U.S. victory of the Space Race and shocked the world.
Set in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, NASA slowly began integrating whites and blacks before many other workplaces did. Johnson, one of the first Black women mathematicians at NASA and the first Black woman to have her name credited on a NASA research report, sets the tone as the most brilliant on the floor — surpassing all of the men in their calculations. Vaughan was the first Black woman supervisor at NASA, leading the West Area Computing unit and Jackson was the first Black female engineer at NASA.
As these women try to settle into their positions, they are met with office politics on the basis of their skin color. Johnson walks nearly 40 minutes in heels and a dress, often in heavy rain, to use the restroom because there are no colored restrooms on the west campus. She drinks out of a different coffee pot in the office, is not allowed to attend meetings related to her calculations and a co-worker even tries taking credit for her work completely.
Through their perseverance, they gain the respect they so greatly deserve. In fact, John Glenn himself would refuse to launch until Johnson gave the all clear.
“The Color of Friendship” (2000)
Set in 1977, “The Color of Friendship” is a Disney Channel movie depicting the friendship between two young ladies of opposite races. Piper Dellums (Shadia Simmons) is the daughter of U.S. Congressman, Ron Dellums (Carl Lumbly). She wants nothing more than to host a foreign exchange student from Africa, one who is black like herself.
Mahree Bok (Lindsay Haun) hails from a rich white family in South Africa during the height of apartheid. She expects to be met with a nice white American family, but is placed with a nice black American family instead.
Both girls grapple with unmet expectations toward the other and with rapidly changing world-views as they form an unlikely friendship. The two are treated like sisters thanks to Roscoe Dellums’ (Penny Johnson Jerald) unyielding resolve to treat Mahree like the rest of her children during her stay.
The film is based on the real Piper Dellums’ childhood in which her family really did host a white foreign exchange student by the name of Carrie. After Carrie returned to South Africa, she became an activist and spurred the creation of the first anti-apartheid student union in the area. She wrote letters seeking help from Ron Dellums before disappearing after presumably being killed for her activism.
Piper Dellums is now a published author, filmmaker and activist.
“The Help” (2011)
Casting of the century is found in the 2011 film, “The Help.” Based on the best-selling historical fiction novel by Kathryn Stockett, the film exposes the harsh realities that African American housemaids in Mississippi faced during the Civil Rights Movement while working for affluent white families in the 1960s.
Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan (Emma Stone) finds herself back home after studying journalism at the University of Mississippi. She returns to her wealthy cotton plantation family more observant and forward-looking, no longer recognizing the people she lives with.
Skeeter’s mother (Allison Janney) continuously pressures her to marry, minimizing her degree as simply ‘a piece of paper’ — a direct insult to her values. She lies at dinner one night, claiming the maid who had raised her moved back home, when she actually fired her. Skeeter grows frustrated with the mistreatment and belittlement of the black women who tend to every household in the neighborhood, leading to an investigative journalism pursuit.
Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), maid for the Leefolts, confides in Skeeter to tell her story. Soon after, Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), maid for the outcast Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain) and previously for the ringleader of the town racists, Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), agrees as well. In a matter of time, Skeeter compiles stories from several maids to be published in the novel, “The Help.” Word travels quickly, leaving Skeeter and the maids with the responsibility to fight for truth and justice, like thousands of black Americans during this oppressive period.
“Hotel Rwanda” (2004)
“Hotel Rwanda” depicts the 1994 Rwandan genocide from the perspective of a Hutu hotel manager who housed and protected over 1200 Tutsi refugees, including his wife and children, at the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. An estimated 800,000 lives were lost to the slaughter in just over four months.
Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is a real-life Hutu individual who once lived in Rwanda with his wife, Tatiana Rusesabagina (Sophie Okonedo) and their four children. The film follows the family, starting with the slower, yet still very tense day-to-day of the early upset. When their house gets too dangerous, they move to the hotel along with their surviving neighbors. Roughly twenty people spurred to nearly a thousand practically overnight with the United Nations designating the hotel as a makeshift refugee camp.
The film is hard to watch at times since so many people, orphaned children included, were violently killed, but the preservation of history is as important as acknowledging that the event happened and learning from the atrocity. The real genocide was still bloodier than the film demonstrates.
Rusesabagina has remained a diligent human rights activist to this day. He recently spent three years from 2020 imprisoned in Rwanda for terrorism despite having lived in Texas since 2009. He was meant to be imprisoned for 25 years, but was released in 2023 thanks to pressure from Qatar and the United States.
