A showing of the film, “A Long Walk Home” and a discussion of the movie took place Tuesday evening at 6:00 p.m. in Sykes Theatre. “A Long Walk Home” is about the bus boycotts that took place in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 and 1956.The viewing was part of the Diversity Film Series and the 19th Annual Co-Curricular Programs Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The program was organized with the support of the Office of Social Equity, Office of Co-Curricular Programs and Office of Multicultural Affairs. The WCU Gospel Choir opened the program with a lively performance of two songs. A discussion of the civil rights movement took place, followed by the film.
Dr. Maghan Keita, a history professor at Villanova University, Dr. LaTonya Thames-Leonard, a history professor at West Chester and Lucy Hackey, the daughter of Clifford and Virginia Foster Durr, significant civil rights activists, spoke to the audience about the suffering and the triumphs that took place in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s.
“A Long Walk Home” explores the great deal of racism and sexism prevalent in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s. The moving and powerful film demonstrates the adversity that many had to go through to stand up for what they believed in. At the focus of the film are a black woman, played by Whoopi Goldberg and a white woman, played by Sissy Spacek. Their friendship, while socially forbidden, teaches each of them a valuable and lifelong lesson.
Lucy Hackney’s mother, Victoria Durr, was a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama during the movement and fought for equality. Rosa Parks was a close friend of the Durr family and also did seamstress work for them. In fact, Hackney’s father, Clifford Durr, along with E.D. Nixon, the president of the NAACP, bailed Parks out of jail after her arrest for refusing to give up her seat. Hackney said of her mother and Parks, “A white woman and a black woman became friends and they were bound and determined to change race relations.” She told of the dangers for those involved in the movement and that there was a great deal of fear of being harmed.
Hackney also told a story of police printing the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the women who met with black women for church meetings. Dr. Thames-Leonard explained, “The black church served as the country club, meeting place and political center.” The discussion led to the sometimes undermining of the presence of women in the civil rights movement. Since the church was such a central place of the movement she said that the theology encourages men as leaders and keeps up the patriarchy.
Dr. Keita emphasized the huge role of black women in the struggle and said that the movie suggests that women are as capable as carrying out a movement as men are. He told the audience that the movement started long before the bus boycotts, as far back as the 1870s after a woman refused to get out of her seat in a street car in Philadelphia. White men ejected her from the car and she sued the transport system and won.
Taking place on the day of Coretta Scott King’s funeral, the panelists spoke of her contributions to the movement. Thames-Leonard praised her for thriving and continuing the struggle after the assassination of her husband. Keita encouraged young people to take leadership. He said, “The 1950s were a course in history that was changed by black women and black men, young people.”
Martin Luther King was 25 and his wife, 23 when they moved to Montgomery, Alabama, only one year before he led the bus boycott and nine years before his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.