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Movie Reviews
| Hoxie: The First Stand. Prod. by David Appleby, 2003. 56 mins. (Cinema Guild, 130 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016-7038; 800-723-5522; <orders@cinemaguild.com>; <www.cinemaguild.com> [Sept. 13, 2004])
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| In July 1955 Hoxie, Arkansas, was a town of less than three thousand people in the northern part of the state, not far from Memphis, Tennessee. The otherwise sleepy agricultural area captured headlines when the school board voted to desegregate voluntarily, in line with the May 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. What ensued was a rather predictable outburst of anger and violence by those bent on maintaining white supremacy. |
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Narrated by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chairman Julian Bond in the sonorous tones that have become a staple in this genre and punctuated by various forms of mood-setting music, this documentary provides a useful and illuminating portrait of an episode otherwise lost to history. What is particularly useful about this work is not just the filmmaker's prodigious research, which has recovered numerous still photographs and footage that are equally enlightening, but also the interviews done with leading racists of that era, who provide insight into the mechanics of reactionary politics. |
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