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Movie Reviews
| The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Prod. by Richard Wormser. Quest Productions, VideoLine Productions, and Thirteen/WNET New York, 2002. 4 parts, 56 mins. each. (California Newsreel, Ordering Dept., Box 2284, South Burlington, VT 05407; 877-811-7495; <contact@newsreel.org>; <http://www.newsreel.org> [Sept. 15, 2003])
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| The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow is a major documentary production by PBS. Despite what the title suggests, the primary subject of this four-part series is not the rigid system of public segregation that dominated the pre-1954 South. Instead, the film focuses on the larger structure of white supremacy and black subordination from 1865 to 1954, of which segregation represented one major pillar. As a result, the script mixes accounts of political disfranchisement, legal discrimination, economic exploitation, and racial violence with details on formal segregation to create a sweeping portrait of the South's repressive racial order. The production also places great emphasis on the stories of those courageous men and women who resisted black subjugation during this period and whose efforts were eventually rewarded in 1954 when the Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which struck down segregation in the public schools. |
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The narrative mostly follows a chronological format, with each of the four segments running about fifty-six minutes. The producers do not stick closely to a college textbook treatment of southern black history but instead concentrate on providing basic background information before moving on to special features about pivotal events and significant individuals during each era. Photographs, newsreel footage, blowups of newspaper and magazine articles, music, and videotaped oral history interviews blend together fairly well throughout the documentary. Descendants of several of the individuals featured in the film and aging participants from the pre-1954 campaigns are among those interviewed on screen. In addition, a number of academics serve as "talking heads" in the film. The list of historians who offer their opinions includes Nell Painter, James Anderson, Grace Hale, Glenda Gilmore, Melton McLaurin, Kenneth Goings, David Levering Lewis, Patricia Sullivan, Theodore Rosengarten, and Harvard Sitkoff. |
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The series begins with an episode entitled "Promises Betrayed," which covers the period from emancipation through 1896. This segment provides extended discussions of the Kansas exodus, the rise of Tuskegee Institute, the antilynching efforts of Ida B. Wells, the creation of the Mound Bayou community in Mississippi, and the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case. The second part, "Fighting Back," concentrates on the years from 1896 to 1917. The Wilmington, North Carolina, riot of 1898, the educational efforts of Charlotte Hawkins Brown, the convict-lease system, the role of religion and music (especially jazz) as outlets for racial self-expression, the conflict of ideas between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Houston mutiny and riot of 1917 all receive special treatment. "Don't Shout Too Soon," the title of the third part, describes the years 1917–1940. The prevalence of horrific racial violence, especially lynching, is spotlighted in this episode, as is the sharecropping system and the economic dependency it fostered. The subjects of individual vignettes include Ned Cobb, Walter White, Du Bois, and especially Charles H. Houston, whose key role in formulating legal strategy for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is fully acknowledged. |
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