On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I sat with my three daughters and watched the King in the Wilderness documentary, a remarkable film about the final, turbulent months that preceded King s assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Mrs. King, are you taking part in this demonstration as an individual or as a wife? a white reporter asks Coretta Scott King, about her participation in a rally against the Vietnam War in one scene.
Taken aback, she offers this response: Well, I m taking part as an individual and a wife. I m both.
In the future, Hollywood will commit big dollars to major productions about George Floyd s life and the worldwide movement that followed. As I sat there with my girls, I wondered how those movies and documentaries a key educational tool for the next generation might portray the Black women who ve lent their time, resources, voices and bodies in the name of social justice and the eradication of systemic racism.