‘Locked Out’ recalls period of Massive Resistance at Film Festival

From the Richmond News Leader’s support for massive resistance of school integration in the 1950s, to young black students’ fight to be educated despite being called “niggers” by white classmates, a new film, “Locked Out: Massive Resistance,” provides a brutally real look at an era of racism.
The film, which many are calling to be shown at schools throughout the country, was presented at the University of Virginia’s Culbreth Theatre on Saturday as part of the 22nd annual Virginia Film Festival.

Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the first black to be elected governor in the nation, joined a panel of former black students who were victims of Massive Resistance.
In the film, Delores Johnson Brown of Norfolk recalled being interviewed by a panel of white men who were to decide whether she could attend school with whites.
“‘What are you going to do if somebody calls you a nigger?’” Brown said she was asked. She responded that she’d ignore those people, “because I know I’m not that.”
Brown recalled taking a seat at school and white kids sliding their chairs away. Other black students missed years of school because of school shutdowns.
“Alls I want to do is come and go to school. … I don’t want any special treatment,” one young black man told a 1950s reporter.
Patricia Turner of Charlottesville said she remembers a white student telling her: “You’re supposed to stink, but you don’t stink.”
She said it was “amazing” what some whites were made to believe about black children.

At times it was easy to become angry, said one film speaker, but many of the black students suppressed their feelings and didn’t fight back because they wanted to prove their civility.
Leonard Lambert of Richmond said that he was inspired by civil rights attorney Oliver Hill Sr. for having the courage to “shake his fist” at the Virginia General Assembly and say “this is wrong.” Hill debunked the idea that separate could be equal.
James Kilby of Warren County said he recalled as a youth hearing about 14-year-old Emmett Till being murdered after reportedly whistling at a white woman.
“I was wondering what kind of world I was born into,” Kilby said.

During the panel discussion, Wilder said history is often censored and “we don’t always tell it how it was.”
But “Locked Out” is “real,” said Wilder, who was elected as Virginia governor 20 years ago this month. He added that black people want the same things in life as white people, saying education is key to black people’s success.