Samuel L. Jackson, Social Activist, An Actor Who Rose Above the Injustice of America
By Norman Franklin
Norman Franklin
February is over. We have done our due diligence to share the history, heritage, accomplishment, and contributions of African Americans to the greatness of this nation.
I am not certain whether trending legislation will prohibit Black History Month as well as prohibit the sharing of Black history in the classrooms of America’s schools. The sociopolitical ambiance of the nation is changing. We are taking not so subtle steps backwards under the ruse of making America’s system processes secure and fair.
It seems extreme and myopic.
While White American extremist are busy crafting legislation to prohibit or restrict how American history, African/African American history is interpreted and presented, we are not idle. African Americans have moved into positions of authority in corporate America, and governance as well as positions of power and control of media and entertainment industries.
Billionaire Oprah Winfrey has her name on a broadcasting television network. It is OWN. Tyler Perry, also a billionaire, purchased Fort McPherson and has built the largest movie production studio in the United States. They will produce movies, documentaries, and retells depicting real people, events, and history.
Spike Lee, film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and author brings to the screen stories of African Americans, their strivings in the issues of Black America, and how we overcome.
Brad Pitt, actor, and film producer has a string of movies about Black lives, both poignant and iconic. He produced “Twelve Years A Slave” and more recently, “Bob Marley: One Love.”
African American history ain’t going away.
There is constructive interaction in the ranks of those who stand up to fight against injustice; those who fight within the system to break down barriers and pave the way for others to follow; synergy that bonds them as colleagues striving for a common goal.
The journey of Samuel L. Jackson to international star status gives credence to this hypothesis.
The 75-year-old Jackson’s pathway to becoming the top grossing leading actor in the U.S. and Canada traverses through the America we now want to deny.
Samuel L. Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., on December 21, 1948. His mother, Elizabeth Mongomery, was a factory worker. His father, Roy H. Jackson, struggled with alcohol addiction, and lived apart from the family in Kansas City, Missouri. The absentee father, Jackson only met him twice, died from alcoholism.
Elizabeth and Samuel lived with her parents in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His formal education began in the segregated school system. He graduated from the segregated Riverside High School. Chattanooga’s public schools didn’t fully desegregate until 1986.
It was in 1968, while attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, that his life intersected with the anger of Black America. Jackson was an usher at the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. Afterwards he flew to Memphis to join a protest march.
“I was angry about the assassination,” Jackson later shared in a Parade Magazine interview. “But I wasn’t shocked by it. I knew that change was going to take something, not sit-ins, not peaceful coexistence.”
He got involved. Jackson and other students demanded reform in the school’s curriculum and decision making at Morehouse. They held the board of trustees hostage for two days on the campus. Morehouse agreed to policy changes, but Jackson was charged with unlawful confinement. The convicted felon was suspended from attending college for two years.
During the two-year suspension, Jackson was a social worker in Los Angeles. In LA, he saw the strivings of Black life in the bowels of America. He worked with the broken lives of the marginalized and the manifestations of the system of injustice that played out in their daily struggles for survival.
Jackson returned to Morehouse to study acting. He graduated in 1972; he co-founded the “Just Us Theatre” before graduating. He later joined the Black Image Theatre Company. They toured the country performing politically charged skits.
In the 1980s, Jackson met Morgan Freeman and aspiring Black film director, Spike Lee. He was cast in the role of a hard-core drug addict in producer Lee’s film Jungle Fever. The Cannes film festival recognized his talent with an award for best supporting actor. More importantly, Jackson, who had just completed rehab, was inspired to end his own personal drug addiction.
Samuel L. Jackson has appeared in more than 100 films and grossed $5.72 billion at the box office.
The African American didn’t create this social construct of race and privilege, we were born into it, but we have survived it, and will survive it by the power of our resilience, and by the aid and power of the Holy Spirit.