Creating a Multicultural Nation Without Racism
Veteran film critic and social activist Edward McNulty regularly reviews films that have themes about racism and the way it is implanted in American society and around the world.
Freedom Song is a biographical made-for-television drama film based on true stories of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1960s. It tells the story of the struggle of African Americans to register to vote in the fictional town of Quinlan and the group of high school students who are eager to make grassroots changes in their own community.
The hit musical “1776” is a fictionalized version of the drama and intrigue involved in writing the Declaration of Independence. It is art rather than history. However, Ed McNulty points out two scenes that carry the emotion of the debate about whether to include a complaint that the British forced slavery on the American colonists.
Joe Bell is the father of Jadin who is gay. The movie tells the story of a man who is far from perfect, but comes to believe in the message of tolerance for those who are “different.” He gains notoriety on Facebook and decides to walk from La Grande, Oregon to New York City to deliver his message.
In this poignant true story set in Montgomery, Alabama, a Klansman’s grandson must choose which side of history to be on during the Civil Rights Movement. Defying his family and white Southern norms, he fought against social injustice, repression and violence to change the world around him. “Son of the South” is from executive producer Spike Lee and based on Bob Zellner’s autobiography, “The Wrong Side of Murder Creek.”
Zora Neale Hurston was perhaps a genius born too soon, always an outsider, according to this fascinating documentary written and directed by Tracy Heather Strain. An episode of PBS’s The American Experience, it was aired on January 17, 2023, and is still available for streaming on PBS. If, like myself, you missed it, now, March being Women’s History Month, is a good time to catch up with it.
In 2018 Ed McNutty wrote "The Hate U Give is the movie I would have every American see if they could afford just one movie this year. Audrey Wells adapted the script from Angie Thomas’ bestselling 2017 novel.
In this film, director Joy Elaine Davenport used recordings and photographs to tell the story of Fannie Lou Hamer's vision and activism.