ONCE UPON A TIME WHEN WE WERE COLORED

 

FOUR STARS – Powerful, Uplifting

 

      

       The ingredients blended into the development of a human being determine the character of his or her soul.  

       Coming primarily from family, church and school,  those ingredients interact with the person’s choices and personality to create a unique individual.

       In one of the most poignant films illustrating this process, ONCE UPON A TIME WHEN WE WERE COLORED chronicles the development of a black man raised in the segregation of the Southern United States just before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s.

       Although the evil of segregation is clearly portrayed, the film is more about the experience of the black extended family in the South than it is about the injustice of segregation.  Segregation’s evil and constrant threat is the milieu in which the family demonstrates its dignity and courage.

       The story begins with the birth of Clifton in the cotton field, where his young, unmarried mother was working.

         Surrounded by cousins and aunts and  grandparents and church, this young illegitimate child of poor farm laborers enters a world  rich in love and wisdom, compassion and gentleness. 

       Exemplified by his Christian great grandfather, Papa (Al Freeman, Jr.), the family into which he is born knows right from wrong, dignity and love.

       This truth is exemplified early in his life, when as an infant only days old, Papa takes Cliff’s mother and him to the house of the young boy who had fathered Cliff.

       When Papa infers that the family of the young boy should accept responsibility for Cliff and the young man should marry Cliff’s mother, the father of that family rejects the claim by saying that they are too poor to feed two more mouths.   Papa responds, “Havin’ nothing doesn’t mean that you don’t know what is right.”

       It is this awareness, that even in the most horrendous of situations you can have dignity and do what is right, that is so uplifting about the film.

       Also woven into Cliff’s life are the experiences of knowing pastors and teachers who deeply care about his future.

       Although the “equal but separate” educational system of the South provided an inferior education in many ways, the film demonstrates the truth that for Cliff, the encouragement of teachers who believed in him and believed that he could make something of his life provided the greatest education a young developing person needs.

       It is an interesting consequence of such a separate education that the racial tension in the schools which students now experience replaced a nurturing environment in which black teachers in black schools were able to encourage black students to achieve.  

       Though no one would suggest that returning to segregation is the solution, there must be a way in which each individual can experience respect from teachers who love them and care about their futures.  What is lacking in so much of our post civil rights integration is love, and without love and encouragement of each student’s potential from their teachers, students give up the motivation and belief they can achieve.

       In Cliff’s life, he lived in a community of people who loved him.  Though they lived on the wrong side of the tracks and were unable to drink from the same drinking fountain or use the same bathrooms, he was taught that he was a person of worth and value without being taught to hate those who were attempting to devalue him.

       Though the film explores the attempts of the young black men and women to leave the oppressive southern culture, the deep connections of their families, perhaps driven even closer by the persecution of the injustice of racism and segregation, pulls at their souls.

       The development of a human being is fueled by either hatred or love.  The Klan in all its arrogance is fueled by hatred and creates dark souls, however outwardly religious.

       But the love of family, church and school develops human beings capable of great acts of courage and love, and our represents our greatest hope for their to be peace among us all.

       “Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored” is perhaps an idealized fable.  But like all fables the moral expresses a profound truth which runs deep in all of our lives.

 

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