Mondays 'IN' The Undergroundrailroad

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hello gang! Welcome to Mondays In The Undergroundrailroad for February 23, 2004. How is everyone doing today? Well, I have hugs, kisses, an envelope with a gold seal (for drama, of course) and an edible chocolate Oscar for you to enjoy! Get busy gathering the ingredients for the occasion next Sunday. Yes, it's that time of the year, The 2004 Academey Awards. It is quite simple and yes, it's our dessert for today!

In view of the upcoming Academy Awards next week I want to pay tribute to several African-Americans in our final weeks of Black History Month and you know, black IS BEAUTIFUL. For instance, who can forget the handsome Richard Roundtree and Samuel L. Jackson in the lead role of the sexy detective, Shaft. Now those are two bad ~~mother fuc~~ "SHUT YO MOUTH"! Shaft, can you dig it?

What about the beautiful singer and actress, Vanessa Williams. She had a very similar Janet Jackson (also beautiful and talented) incident in her career and at that time I recall the RIGHT WING media saying that she was all "washed up". NOT TRUE as the world now knows.

As we leave Black History Month, I want to thank all of my Monday group for making Black History Month, Black History Monday. Yes, it was my objective to share my black history with you, my friends. But I think *all* of us, in a very unintentional way, discard the commercialism of the monthly tag. We are DUers regardless of the color of our skin. We are progressive, we are bad ~~mother fuc~~ (ok, Shaft, "shut yo mouth"). As my mother would say, we all need each other and yes my friends in the Monday "bunch", I need you.

Lovin you.

_________________________________________________________

Artelia Bendolph peers through her cabin window in Gees Bend, Alabama

Before Black History Month leaves, I want to pay tribute in the UGRR to the award winning photographer, Arthur Rosthstein and his subject, Artelia Bendolph. What a great image!

I have always loved this photograph taken by Arthur Rosthstein in Gees Bend, Alabama, (April 1937) simply entitled, "Artelia Bendolph."

In this photograph, Rothstein juxtaposes the unsmiling profile of a girl with tattered newspapers that advertise the wonders of cellophane for keeping food fresh and the health benefits of a breakfast of shredded wheat. The girl's surroundings make it obvious that fresh food is not something regularly available in her diet. Farm Security Administration photographers often highlighted such ironies to support programs that aided the poor.

The rather hopeless plight that slavery, then sharecropping, then tenancy has doomed countless African-American Alabama families. The famous photograph of Artelia Bendolph staring out of the window of her cabin adds to Rothstein's characterization of Alabama blacks. The little girl provides little in the way of hope but instead depicts a resolute determination to persevere. The newspaper advertisement next to her head shows a white woman holding a platter of food, contrasting the ability of a national culture that was still in the shadow of slavery.

I have often wondered the fate of Artelia. Did she marry, become a Doctor, an educator or was she a victim of an uncertain fate that awaited her or not?

Where ever you are Artelia Bendoph, it is *your* picture that is on my wall.
______________________________________________________

Sidney Poitier, In The Heat of the Night

Guess who's Coming to Dinner?

__________________________________________________________________

Sidney Poitier

There are three movies that stand out when I think of the brilliant actor, Sidney Poitier, A Raisin in the Sun, In the Heat of the Night (1967), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). In 1967, I don't think the world was ready for the on screen chemistry of Sidney and his sexy white female co-star (wow, I can't believe I just said that! We really weren't progressive in that era, I'm sad to say) and their love story. America, and the world that knew our social history, had never seen anything like that before. You had the handsome Sidney Poitier playing the role of Doctor John Wade Prentice, a very wasp-esq "sounding" name and *he* was the DOCTOR with a specialty! Do you recall the scene when Matt Drayton, played by Spencer Tracy, had Dr. Prentice "checked out"? Well Matt was embarrassed when his secretary read of a tick list of Dr. Prentice's credentials. Dr. Prentice had studied all over the world and had more awards than most prominent Doctors of any era or for any color for that matter. It was really something to see. Also, the on screen interaction of his love interest, the white upper class Joanna "Joey" Drayton (Katharine Houghton) with her stunning flowing hair and petite figure. This is the kind of film that African-Americans were begging for. We wanted to be depicted as professionals with the capacity to love. Honestly, there are places in the south to this day that will NOT view that movie in their homes. Why? Southern "honor" a term that I regard as archaic and primitive as slavery itself. I do think Guess Who's Coming to Dinner brought the touchy subject of interracial marriage and dating right into the main stream and advanced the fact that blacks and whites can love and, in fact, be depicted in loving, caring even platonic situations. I remember my first time viewing the movie. It was *very* uncomfortable to watch at that time. Segregation was the "rule of law" for all of my life. But I fell in love with Sidney at that very moment.

The second movie that I certainly feel Sidney should have won an Oscar for is In the Heat of the Night. Again, we have Sidney as a professional forensic detective being asked to investigate a murder in a racist southern town in Mississippi. The south certainly was unprepared for the African-American Sidney Poitier in the role of law enforcement in the 60's. But his role was socially important and excellent in it's delivery.

Sidney was on a role in 1967 and his role of Detective. Virgil Tibbs did not disappoint me. Looking back on the movie, the movie's scene steeling line, "THEY CALL ME MR. TIBBS" (to the gasps of the movie audience, I recall) as he addressed the southern sheriff, Police Chief Bill Gillespie (brilliantly played by Rod Steiger) was not the shocking scene IMO. It would be the moment when the town aristocrat, Mr. Endicott, was being questioned by Detective. Tibbs. Mr. Endicott didn't like the line of questioning coming from a black man and for that he slapped Virgil Tibbs. Well, without missing a BEAT, Virgil slapped Mr. Endicott RIGHT BACK. Mr. Endicott was stunned and so was the audience that I shared the theater with. At that moment you could hear a kernel of popcorn drop on the floor. The film took risks for it's time but it made a social statement about the importance of black actors and the roles that they portrayed. Thing were never the same.

In the Heat of the Night won the "Best Picture" Oscar in 1967 over some very stiff competition ("Bonnie and Clyde", "The Graduate", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner") and Rod Steiger, in what I think was his greatest role, deservedly won "Best Actor". What could have prepared Rod Steiger for this role because it had nothing to do with being born in the south. Rod Steiger was born only a few miles from where I type this report today, liberal West Hampton, New York. He brilliantly took this role, transformed it and made it his own. I suppose that same argument could be made *against* Sidney Poitier at least receiving the nomination for his role as Detective.Virgil Tibbs. For many years the African-American community was crushed over this Oscar omission. But at the end of the day, the African-American culture won. His roles were landmark for it's time and many, many social barriers were changed as a result of all time.

Today Sidney Poitier remains one of the most respected and beloved figures in American cinema of the twentieth century. No. Of all time.
_____________________________________
The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder

The Questions Of The Day

1. Do you plan to see the Mel Gibson movie, The Passion Of The Christ?

2. Are you going to watch the Academy Awards ? If so what categories interest you the most?

3. What is your favorite Sidney Poitier movie?

OK, I'm OUTTA. See you next Monday 'IN' The Undergroundrailroad