The very otherside of the coin of all the 60’s civil rights movement movies/documentaries I’ve been devouring.
While I have been mostly focusing on Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, and the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, while fighting for the same thing, seemed more about actions than words. I had been lulled by the speeches of Malcolm X, and the words of James Baldwin, and the confidence of Martin Luther King Jr., that I wasn’t prepared for what comes when words aren’t enough. Action.
But what also makes this movie different, is that it follows the story from the FBI side. And it shows how far they would go, and by what means they would use, and how scared they were of losing power.
Deaths like Malcolm X, and Sam Cooke remain mysterious, but also suspicious. And movies like this, and the US vs Billie Holiday, show how easy it was for the government to plant informants into these people’s lives. And when they finally let the hammer fall, how easy it was to justify their own means.
I wonder what would they say, if Malcom X, Sam Cooke, Martin Luther King Jr, and Fred Hampton, saw our nation now, over half a century after fighting, and giving their lives for the cause they believed in.