Sanitized Treatment of Worthy Subjects
I was disturbed to see “The Long Walk Home” included among the films Benson criticizes. Yes, the film is sentimental, but it does not cheapen the emotions it introduces.
Benson criticizes the scene in which black women join hands and sing down a mob of angry white men. The scene is probably not authentic, but it indicates the importance of spirituality to the Alabama bus boycott.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of the importance of obeying a higher spiritual law. The church was the true center of the activity, not just as a place to organize but as the representative of the higher authority upon which these people depended so wholeheartedly.
Perhaps a gospel song does not completely convey that message, but it suggests the fortitude of a congregation standing up to a force that was not as bad as it was frustrated and morally destitute.
JEFFREY M. WHEELER
Huntington Beach
Only good movies
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