Sidney Poitier

In the mid 1960s one actor came to represent the struggle for civil rights, fair treatment and justice more than any other. That actor was Sidney Poitier and he chose a number of film roles to emphasise the struggle. He starred in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, the story of a black man who falls in love with a white girl and what happens when he meets her family. In the film he is the eponymous guest at dinner and inter racial farce ensues. The film did have a serious point however, the films shows us that the time when ones parents, or ones society can tell you who to love and why is long since gone. The other iconic films that he is most remembered for is In The Heat of the Night and the Defiant Ones. The first two films were released in 1967 the latter a decade earlier in 1958, in In The Heat of the Night, he plays black homicide detective Virgil Tibbs, home to see his mother in the rural south. He is arrested on general principles when a rich white man is found dead, and Tibbs' being Black is enough reason. When his identity is established, his boss offers his services to the small town sheriff who has little experience with murder investigations. As the two policemen learn how to work together, they begin to make progress on the crime. He was one of the first ever black male lead heroes in a movie, and having a white sidekick at the time was nothing short of extraordinary. In The Defiant Ones, it's a similar plot except on the other side of the law. White Joker Jackson and black Noah Cullen are two convicts on a chain gang who hate each other. After a truck prison accident, they flee and are pursued by the police. While they're chained, the two are dependent on one another. When they eventually get rid of their chains, their hostility has been changed into fellowship and respect. It is very difficult to overestimate the importance of Sidney Poitier, largely for the reason that when he portrayed 'blackness' to a white audience, he did it with a dignity and strength that they were unlikely to have seen before, most other black entertainers would have been portrayed rather more like this