51dA8k3lFHL._SX500_.jpg

Just saw “Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story” at the LRFF and thought: This is a film that ought to be distributed in the public schools. It is a lesson in racism, a film that encapsulates black-white relations in the South with the story of just one brave black man, Booker Wright.

Advertisement

“Booker’s Place” is also multi-layered, a film about a film and its repercussions: Raymond De Felitta’s documentary about a film his father, Frank De Felitta, made for NBC in 1966. (They don’t make them like they used to: Imagine an hour-long, prime-time documentary on a subject of similar controversy on NBC today.) The older De Felitta, now in his 90s, went to Greenwood, Miss., in 1966 with a film crew to take the temperature of race relations there. He found lots of white people saying they loved their negroes, and one old codger who took the crew through sharecropper cabins to show them how well his negroes lived. Hell, they had propane gas! “We’ve never denied them anything,” the man, Louis, says; the black man says, “Yes, suh!”

Help to Keep Great Journalism Alive in Arkansas

Join the fight for truth and become a subscriber of the Arkansas Times. We've been battling powerful forces for 50 years through our tough, determined, and feisty journalism. With over 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts, our readers value great journalism. But we need your help to do even more. By subscribing and supporting our efforts, you'll not only have access to all of our articles, but you'll also be helping us hire more writers to expand our coverage. Together, we can continue to hold the powerful accountable and bring important stories to light. Subscribe now or donate for as little as $1 and be a part of the Arkansas Times community.

Previous article “Arkansas Shorts #3: Warm-Blooded Cold-Hearted” at LRFF Next article Let the weekend begin