'Glory:' A glorious movie which depicts Black self-emancipation

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Glory, directed by Ed Zwick. Starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, Jhimi Kennedy, Andre Braugher.

Two Civil War statues grace the streets of downtown Boston. In Park Square, a beneficent President Lincoln stands over a kneeling slave, bidding him to rise. It is the image of Lincoln freeing the slaves. Historians now understand that it didn't happen that way.

The other sculpture, across from the State House, is the famous Augustus SaintGaudens monument to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, the first Northern all African American combat regiment in U.S. history.

The statue depicts a regiment of Black Union troops-armed, grim-faced, and determined—marching, perhaps, to battle. That image gives a better idea of what did happen. Fittingly, the new Civil War movie "Glory" concludes with an image of that sculpture.

"Glory" tells a magnificent story simply yet subtly. It shows us the best, most important, and most transforming moment in American history. That was the time during which African American free men, freed men, and runaway slaves appeared before the slavemasters as antagonists and before the slaves as liberators—truly turning the world upside down.

The heroism of the Black troops played a central role in shifting the attitudes of whites North and South toward Blacks, and thus advancing the battle for equality. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution probably owe more to these troops than to anyone else.

The 54th Massachusetts was not the first Black infantry unit to fight in the Civil War. When the war broke out and slaveowners abandoned their plantations, slaves ran away in huge numbers toward the Union Army. In most areas, these runaway slaves were initially rebuffed. In a few cases, however, the former slaves were allowed to fight.

By 1862, more Blacks had been organized into labor-support units. Only after the Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, did the demand grow to give African Americans a combat role. Finally, when war casualties had mounted to vast, unanticipated ou nhe abilnis e inde the Doupins, Wendell Phillips, and William Lloyd Garrison.

Black soldiers ridiculed

Many whites ridiculed the idea, holding the racist prejudice that the Blacks would run away. The Massachusetts 54th changed that notion decisively. By the end of the Civil War, 178,975 Blacks had served in the Union Army, 37,638 had lost their lives, and 16 had won the Medal of Honor for ... Boston nally the reply that they got from the police was this: Bennett serves our purposes. That's a quote, unquote."

If the truth hadn't come to light, Bennett would be facing life imprisonment for a crime he didn't commit.

These offenses were committed by a police department, district attorney's office, and city administration under increasing fire for racist maneuvering in criminal cases.

The District Attorney "has always played this role of railroading people for the sake of a conviction, even if they're innocent," said Ellis-Hagler.

The Stuart murder-case fraud has revealed the extent of officially-sanctioned and inspired frame-ups of the Black community in Boston. Evidence of police and city administration misconduct in other cases has now become public.

The partner of a murdered cop testified that he was told by the D.A.'s office to falsify an bravery.

"Glory" tells the story of four African American soldiers and the unit's white commander, Robert Gould Shaw. The balance is well struck between these characters, and the interplay is subtle and moving.

Matthew Broderick, as Shaw, is a young and sensitive son of abolitionist parents who has already proven himself in battle when he accepts the leadership of the new regiment. Among his friends is a young Black intellectual, played by Andre Braugher, who enlists as a private. These two must learn a new set of human relations in the army.

Denzel Washington plays an embittered runaway slave who is suspicious of all whites and contemptuous of Blacks, like the young intellectual, who have accommodated to the white world.

In one powerful scene, the ex-slave runs away to get some shoes, which have been denied to the Blacks by a racist quartermaster. After the Black soldier is captured, Shaw must decide what to do. He orders the man whipped, and when his shirt is removed, the scars of slavery are already on his back. Shaw seems horrified, and the ex-slave bears the torture defiantly, refusing to cry out.

Later, after Denzel Washington's character has proven himself in battle, Shaw asks him to carry the company colors, and he declines. A climactic moment occurs, naturally, when the flag falls in battle near the soldier, and he must decide whether to carry the colors.

Morgan Freeman's character is the most mature. As an older man and a capable soldier, he is the first Black to be awarded non-commissioned officer's stripes. Finally, Jhimi Kennedy plays a shy, religious soldier who seems to typify the Everyman private.

One curious problem with the movie is affidavit. And new information is coming to light in the case of a young Black girl murdered as an innocent bystander in a gang shooting. It appears that the young man convicted of the crime was railroaded into prison because of pressure on the D.A. to "get someone" for the crime.

A lot of anger After the truth came out about the Stuart murder, Mayor Flynn tried to quell the intense anger in the Black community by staging a "healing service" at a local church. Meanwhile he continued to defend his response on the night of the crime.

Furthermore, the undeniable racism that pervades the police department and mayor's office is evident in Flynn's other actions.

He refuses to accede to demands that he apologize to the city's Black community for the actions of the police department. In his "State of the City" address last month, he compared the bad press that Mission Hill got after the Stuart murder to what his home neighborhood of South Boston received 15 years ago when white residents violently resisted court-ordered school busing to that the Black characters are not based upon real historical figures, as Shaw is. Yet the 54th produced the first Black Medal of Honor winner, William H. Carney, a sergeant from New Bedford. Descendants of the 54th urged the filmmakers to use their ancestors as models, but the writers decided, perhaps to avoid the problem of leaving some people out, to leave the Black characters wholly fictional.

Racism Northern-style

Before fighting Confederate troops, the 54th had to learn to deal with racism in the Northern army. Shaw reluctantly announces that the Black troops will receive only $10 a month, while the whites receive $13. The Blacks refuse to accept any pay rather than take less than their rightful share. Although the movie does not show it, the Army relented much later.

In its first battle-at Sea Island, S.C.the 54th fights valiantly. Although it's not shown in the film, they fought off five Confederate regiments and saved a white Connecticut regiment in this engagement. Later they were awarded an official commendation.

The 54th marches to "Glory" in the assault on Fort Wagner along the beach at Charleston, S.C. The fort was armed with heavy artillery and had high sloping parapets which made it nearly impregnable. Only one regiment could spearhead the attack, and Shaw volunteered the 54th.

In this heroic battle, the 54th managed to storm the parapet, but was driven off. Half the regiment was killed. The bravery and determination of the soldiers are vividly portrayed, and the cinematic images linger with the viewer long after the film is over. The implement school desegregation.

The mood in the Black community is one of "a lot of anger," says Ellis-Hagler. "And they're not taken in by Flynn's gestures of reconciliation.

"No one went to the [healing] service from the [Mission Hill] housing project, which was the community that was roughrided through. That was a very artificial thing to help the mayor say something politically."

Organized opposition is strong in the Black community. Ellis-Hagler, Minister Don Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, other Black clergy, Black elected officials, and community activists have called for a commission of inquiry to look into police misconduct. Ellis-Hagler and others have demanded the resignation of the mayor and police commissioner.

Police terror in the Black community has left deep scars. One mother told of how, for one month, she kept her son from wearing his black jogging suit out of fear that he would be picked up for murder. The Boston Globe reported how another mother "makes sure her son ... wears clean underwear in case assault on Fort Wagner became a deep source of pride to Blacks and the film suggests its powerful effect on white troops.

Overcoming racist mythology "Glory" should bury "Gone With the Wind" and "Birth of a Nation" as films of the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. While these last two films dominated our images of the Civil War for decades, they are based on lies. They recreate the racist mythology that regained ascendancy with the collapse of Reconstruction in 1877.

It was not until the 1960s that historians again captured the reality of the period, which historians like W.E.B. Du Bois had recorded earlier. Du Bois' interpretation was ignored in an avalanche of racist historical re-writing. "Glory" thus comes very late. Many more such films could be made, showing the role Blacks played in their liberation.

It is interesting, also, to compare "Glory" with Spike Lee's recent "Do the Right Thing," which also sets a white man in the middle of a Black community, but in our modern world. "Glory" is a hopeful movie which shows the promise of what America might have become. It portrays the opening moments of African American freedom, dignity, and pride.

As we all know, the promise was betrayed, and Blacks were cast down into a new hell, a "freedom" circumscribed by terror. Spike Lee's movie shows accurately how far we still have to go, and how little whites understand about the Black experience.

While the dream is still deferred, "Glory" gives us a view of an awakening, a great getting-up morning, that can only be called glorious.

he's strip-searched by police."

Black youth tell of constant police harassment. The Globe reported that "young people are liable to be stopped at any time and in almost any situation.

Flynn's attitude toward the Black community, stated Ellis-Hagler, is that "you can be harassed, your constitutional rights can be violated, the cops can act illegally in your life, and no one owes you an apology...

The result: a Black man faced a life sentence in prison until a cruel hoax that played on racism came apart. But the revelation that Stuart was lying has produced no change in how Blacks in this city are treated by cops and city officials.

The only change is that the Black community's anger is deeper, and the cops must tread more lightly until, they hope, the media attention all blows over. That deeper anger promises to evolve into an organized movement by the Black community against this continued repression.

And how many other William Bennetts are out there, perhaps facing the death penalty, for crimes they did not commit, only because they are Black?

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