The entry begins:Defining the Struggle is a nonfiction book, but it would make a terrific and important movie. It tells a story only the most well-informed historical buffs already know: that of the founding, in the last two decades of the nineteenth century in the United States, of the first national civil rights organizations intended to have long-term status. These organizations’ varied experiments with social change strategies would sow the seeds for later major national civil rights efforts that would eventually give birth to the U.S. civil rights movement. The setting is a time of brutal racial oppression imposed by social, economic, and legal institutions during the so-called nadir period, in which American race relations were at their all-time low following the end of slavery -- a time of rising segregation, Jim Crow laws, brutal lynchings and other race violence, and a largely indifferent public reaction. In one respect this is a story about African American history -- a story of courageous work by and for African Americans. But it is also a general American history story about the early struggle for racial equality, which, as W.E.B. Du Bois famously described, presented the country with the greatest problem of the Twentieth Century. These early efforts have been largely overlooked by mainstream historians. What better way to turn this around than to make a movie that brings the relevant historical figures and their work to life? Here are my suggestions as to a “dream team” cast of leading characters:Learn more about Defining the Struggle at the Oxford University Press website.
W.E.B. Du Bois, founder of the Niagara Movement – Jeffrey Wright (relatively young but already full of gravitas)
Alexander Walters, head of the National Afro American Council – Idris...[read on]
Susan Carle teaches legal ethics, anti-discrimination law, labor and employment law, and torts at American University Washington College of Law.
My Book, The Movie: Defining the Struggle.
--Marshal Zeringue
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