(ThyBlackMan.com) Sidney Poitier’s family hailed from tiny Cat Island in the Bahamas. As a boy of four, he would leave the house on his own and wander the woods or go swimming out in the sea, all by himself. He was born in Southern Florida while his mother was working as a domestic. There was a tradition of Bahamian women arranging to come to the US to have their children so as to secure US citizenship for their progeny. The Bahamas, by the way, are not in the Caribbean. They are in the South Atlantic, and many of the major islands in the Bahamas are North of Miami. Many of African Americans of South Florida are of partial Bahamian ancestry.
Sidney Poitier came to New York as a teenager without a coat and was homeless for a while in the middle of winter. He spent time in the US army. He wandered into theatre where his big break came as a lead character in RAISIN IN THE SUN. However, he had long been making films such as BLACKBOARD JUNGLE where he played a juvenile delinquent with potential. NO WAY OUT where he was a Black doctor in a town filled with racial strife. And the DEFIANT ONES where he was cast as a Black convict who escapes prison chained to a redneck. But when RAISIN IN THE SUN was made into a film, it was just as much of a sensation on the silver screen as it was on the big stage, if not more so.
Around the same time, Harry Belafonte was also popular in Hollywood. But Poitier’s star soon eclipsed Belafonte’s. Was he that much better an actor, or was it that the civil rights movement was taking the country by storm and Hollywood wanted to jump in on the parade by featuring a Black actor, and if Hollywood was going to make a statement, they wanted it as obvious as possible?
At any rate, I long, remember going to the Alden Theatre on Jamaica Avenue in Queens every few months or so, to watch the latest Sidney Poitier flick. I recall seeing TO SIR WITH LOVE where he’s a Black American teacher with a class of working class students in London. DUEL AT DIABLO where Poitier plays a gunfighter helping the cavalry shepherd a wagon train through hostile Native American territory. A PATCH OF BLUE where Poiter falls in love with a blind white girl. THE LONG SHIPS where he’s a Muslim prince who encounters the Vikings. GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER where he plays a Black doctor in love with a white socialite. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT where he portrays a Philadelphia detective who cracks a murder case in the Deep South.
Sidney Poitier would win the Academy Award for LILLIES OF THE FIELD in 1963 in which he plays a Black veteran who is a carpenter and who builds a chapel for a band of nuns, free of charge. However, that performance cannot hold a lot to his portrayal in RAISIN IN THE SUN. But apparently Hollywood was not ready for that step two years before. While most other African Americans in the US were regularly cast in stereotypical roles. Poitier was the clear exception, often given decent roles that were seen as landmarks. But there was a whiff of the subservient in some of the parts. Building a chapel for free. Devoting his life to helping a blind white girl. Petitioning for acceptance by the parents of a wealthy socialite.
But who could quibble with IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT where he slaps the wealthy white landowner soundly in the face in the presence of the local sheriff. However, a movie in the same vein, but with an even more conscious message is BROTHER JOHN which Sidney Poitier starred in, in 1971. As the civil rights movement morphed into the Black Power movement Poitier’s presence in films began to taper off. Though he starred and directed in several movies with Harry Belafonte and later Bill Cosby, they were comedies. Later in life, he became the US ambassador to the Bahamas. Back in the Sixites at the height of his fame, he and Harry Belafonte were deeply involved with Dr. King and the civil rights movement and had several close calls with the Ku Klux Klan.
Staff Writer; Arthur Lewin
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