View source for 329-2010--Week 12 Questions/Comments

== Things the movie got right ==
The movie accurately portrayed the inferior status of African Americans in the South.  It showed how some whites, like during Christmas dinner, talked one way in front of blacks and another when they were not in the room and how others were not concerned with who heard their outspokenness dripping with racial prejudice.  The movie also showed how the boycott was most difficult for black women, especially those who were domestic servants.  This was true not only because of the long distances they lived from their places of employment, but also because, even if they were the last ones home, they were still expected to uphold their motherly duties of keeping house and taking care of the children.  How they were able to sustain the boycott for over a year, I have no clue.  But their determination goes to show how dedicated they were to winning this battle.-Debbie M.

The one thing I believed the movie portrayed really well was to show how churches were used to spread the ideals of activism to the people. In the movie they mention that those with cars should use them to help with car pooling others around. Using personal cars for driving others was brought up at the church. Once these plans were laid forth in the church, they were met with cops trying to impede them by giving them tickets. Plus, once they were met by opposition, they refused to use any kind of force, even when they were being beaten. Also, most of the people showed boycotting the buses were black women. As is true with what really happened, men helped by planning the boycotts and raising money to keep it going. Another thing that was portrayed well was the increase of membership for the KKK. - Mike E.

The movie was extremely accurate in the movie's portrayal of the determination of the African American community to uphold the boycott. Despite the long distances and the harassment that they faced, they still diligently walked or found another mode of transportation to work, such as taxis. The movie also shows that they organized car-pools to help those that could not walk. Due to the boycott, the movie also shows the methods that the white community tried to use to break the boycott, such as harassing those that were driving in the car pools. --Erin L.

The film accurately portrays the racism of the whites in the South and the intense feelings they have for segregation. In the film blacks were not allowed in the “white” park.  The bus obviously had segregated sections.  In the movie the black women would pay the bus fare then get off the bus and board on the back so they would not walk through the white section.  The bus boycott began after the arrest of Rosa Parks (and it’s led by Martin Luther King, Jr.).  Women’s roles are also accurately portrayed.  They either had a job, or they worked in the home.  If the family had money, it had a maid and the wife did not have to do as much of the housework.  Wives also were expected to follow their husband’s ideals.  This is shown when Mrs. Thompson tells Odessa she cannot drive her anymore because her husband thinks ‘it is not right to make her suffer.’  However I must say that I loved the speech Mrs. Thompson gives her husband when she tells him that she will do what she wants in order to do her job to run the household, and that he should leave her alone unless he wants her to go to his job and tell him how to do it.-Samantha W.

I agree with Samantha in regards to how the movie portrayed the city buses as being heavily segregated, and I think it would be pretty accurate to say regardless of gender all African Americans suffered if they made a white person angry. I do wonder did many African Americans ride the bus throughout the boycott and if they did was the reaction the same as Whoopi Goldberg's character portrayed? I also think it was correct when her brother came with the taxi and the driver said "he needed to leave before he was lynched," the terror of white society in Montgomery was everywhere, as shown by Mr. Thompson and his "citizens council" and all African Amerians knew it. -Megan W.

I liked how the movie placed the lives of the Thompson's and the Cotters as totally seperate.  Mr. Cotter said that we will only know her as a maid and she will only know us as her employers.  This distant relationship between white families and there black maids seemed very accurate.  Even though it seemed like the Thompsons were less racist at first there was no sense of compassion or equality for Odessa and she was purely another servent.  I like how the movie portrayed this very gradual ideological change and how acceptance was very difficult. -afrisk

== Things the movie got wrong == 

White psychologists believed that when black women began to make more money than their male counterparts and were able to achieve a higher degree of education, there would be some conflicts within the household. This was not an issue in the movie for the Cotter family. In contrast, it had become a problem for the Thompson family when Miriam decided to stage her own boycott against her husband Norman when he demanded that she stop driving Odessa to work. Miriam claimed that she had a college degree and would be able to make a sufficient amount of money and she would do with it as she pleased. Along the same lines, there was no mention of black women that went to college and had professional jobs. - Mike E.

== The movie as a primary source about the time/people who made it ==


== Comments on the reading versus the movie ==
The movie and the readings corroborate the way African Americans found themselves victims of Southern state and local laws that are in direct contrast to federal laws.  Mr. Thomas' comments relate the way in which Southern law enforcement refused to even acknowledge that federal laws were in place which provide protection for African American rights.  These law enforcement officials truly believed that the laws they lived by were supreme and there was no need to look any further than their own decisions.  They saw the federal laws as laws for outsiders and had no jurisdiction in their areas.  It also showed how African Americans did not have federal protection just because they (the federal government) said they had rights.  As long as there was no enforcement of the federal laws, black Americans were forced to live within the demands of local laws. -Debbie M.

The Rosa Parks reading mentions the bus boycott and how blacks formed carpools.  Also white women would drive black women to and from work because they could not take the bus.  This was a major part of the film.  The reading also mentions how the police would ticket people involved in the boycott.  At one point in the film Odessa says, “I learned one thing in my life and that is when your hand’s in the lion’s mouth, it’s just better to pat it on the head.”  In the reading it is a woman named Mary.-Samantha W.

“They couldn’t afford to say, ‘I’m supporting the boycott.’ So the white women lied and the black women lied.  And the maids kept coming and the white women kept driving them back and forth to work.”  This quote from “Civil Rights Activists” exemplifies the relationship between Odessa and Mrs. Thompson that drives the racial tension as the movie goes along.  Mrs. Thompson kept secret from her husband that she was giving Odessa rides and when he found out, he flipped out and she was forbid to drive her.  She eventually gave her rides and went behind her husband’s back and was lying to him.  Odessa also could not admit that she was part of the boycott or she would get heckled and possibly arrested.  This quote is very basic in describing the dynamics of the boycott system but there are many more emotions involved outside of simply carpooling. -afrisk

== Questions asked in class ==

In class Dr. McClurken asked us to look at the successes and/or failures of the movie and I think the movie overall was a success in accurately explaining the struggles of African Americans in the 1950s. The movie shows through Whoopi Goldberg's character the success of women in playing leading roles in the bus boycott movement (the last scene being the most powerful with the women singing in the parking lot) and against the Southern Whites Citizens Council. I also think it is a success to show the power of Mrs. Thompson, white civil rights leaders were important in showing the plight of African Americans and were able to access white media easier. Mrs. Thompson was linked with the African Americans in town but was able to stand up to the men in her life and in a sense was making a better life for herself and her daughter. -Megan W.

I don't know if this was a success or a failure but I found the absence of Martin Luther King on screen intriguing. His voice was heard (recordings of his speeches I assume) but no actor played him. Perhaps this was because no actor could live up to the great Martin Luther King Jr.  Since he was never shown on screen he was made a simply a figure of the Civil Rights Movement.-Megan Mc.

I think this was a very successful portrayal of the views and behavior of people in the 1950s, not only toward race but also toward gender roles, family relationships and social responsibility.  The narrator is a white woman (the grownup Mary Catherine), and it would be easy to dismiss the whole movie as just one more white filter on US history.  But John Cork, the screenwriter, didn't allow that to  happen.  Neither white nor black are romanticized or demonized. --- Debbi S.

When the young white kids came on the bus and were harassing Odessa's daughter would a white bus driver stop the bus and kick the white's off? -afrisk