‘Banished’ details brutal ousting from rural South
Kam Williams
It’s a phrase that has become so common that most of us don’t think twice when we hear it — how many 20th Century African American trailblazers are referred to as the first to achieve certain feats or milestones “since Reconstruction.”
For instance, Edward Brooke, R-Mass., is always called the first black elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction. Similarly, when Virginia Democrat Douglas Wilder is celebrated, it’s almost always as the first African American to serve as governor of a state since Reconstruction.
So why is that “since Reconstruction” qualifier so frequently attached to modern African American accomplishments? Because blacks had briefly made significant inroads in American society following the Civil War, only to have everything taken away in the wake of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
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Freeman on reprising his role as God
Kam Williams
Born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tenn., Morgan Freeman is keeping extraordinarily busy. The Academy Award-winner, who recently turned 70, has a number of upcoming films on the docket, including three being released later this year — “The Feast of Love,” the Vietnam War-centered “The Last Full Measure,” and “Gone, Baby, Gone,” a murder mystery with strong Boston ties. Portions of the film, which marks Ben Affleck’s directorial debut and is based on a novel by Dorchester native Dennis Lehane, were filmed in Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester and South Boston.
Freeman’s slate remains full in 2008. He will share the screen with Jack Nicholson in “The Bucket List,” a Rob Reiner-directed road comedy about a couple of terminally ill patients who make a break from the cancer ward. In the action-adventure flick “Wanted,” he’ll play an assassin alongside Angelina Jolie and hip-hop star Common. In “The Dark Knight,” a sequel to the 2005 smash “Batman Begins” slated for a blockbuster release next summer, he’ll rejoin a strong ensemble cast that features Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman. And he’s already attached to “Rendezvous with Rama,” an adaptation of the sci-fi best seller by Arthur C. Clarke scheduled for a 2009 release.
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