Deacons for Defense (2003)

I’m glad I watched this film as I had never heard of the Deacons, an all-Black self-defense group formed during the days of the Civil Rights Movement. In this TV movie inspired by the real life Deacons, Forest Whitaker is a father and factory worker who is content not to make waves with regards to the white leadership at his factory and in his town until he witnesses a co-worker being brutalized for deigning to try to for something better and his daughter is terrorized for protesting. Finally enough is enough and the Deacons are formed with Forest as one of their leaders. This makes a nice companion piece to Bill Duke’s earlier TV film The Killing Floor. It seems that these are the stories that some are trying to suppress, keeping people from learning the complexities of the United States in all its failures, promises, and potential.