This week is Civil Rights Week for the Lamb family. Yes, I know Black History month is February, but we think it’s good to think about these issues at other times of the year too. I’m glad our family with 2 teen boys choose a film focusing on race over The Wolverine and Elysium.
1) We saw Lee Daniel’s The Butler on Sunday night as a family. A powerful portrayal of US history, focusing particularly the Civil Rights movement from perspective of a black butler serving in the White House. The story of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), which is loosely based on the true story of Eugene Allen who served 8 presidents. (Allen’s story is told in The Butler: A Witness to History by Wil Haygood.) The film is full of ironies. LBJ (Liev Schreiber) got the Civil Rights Act passed (1965) and yet frequently used the N-word. Reagan (Alan Rickman) helped Gaines and the black White House staff get more equitable wages, yet opposed sanctions against racist Apartheid South Africa. The Lamb family loved this flick: 4 thumbs up. (Technically, we have 8 thumbs, but I think each person only gets to vote with 1 thumb, so 4 is a perfect score.)
2) On Tuesday and Wednesday night we watched 42, the biopic telling the story of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), the first black major league baseball player. The boys were familiar with the story from a young age, reading a children’s book, Teammates, about the relationship between Robinson and all-star short-stop Pee Wee Reece. (I was moved to tears whenever I read it.) 
3) On the recommendation of my younger son Noah, who read it for AP US history, I started reading The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward. I’ll share some thoughts this classic history of racial segregation in the next post.
