ORGANIZER BEHIND THE SCENES

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER SHOWN TO BE INGENUOUS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The camera of director George C. Wolfe follows the civil rights organizer behind the scenes of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

The narrative hops, skips and jumps a bit at first like the little black girl in a red petticoat off to what was once an all-white school after the United States Supreme Court overturned segregation in 1954.

The main story gets started quickly enough through a time fissure as civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin has an idea about turning regional civil rights protests into a much larger national event that ultimately would capture the attention of the world.

Colman Domingo does a good job in creating the Rustin biopic character into an impassioned civil rights leader who had the character and personality that taking the lead on such an issue of importance requires.

The character also has to be interesting from the start to warrant a movie being made about him. Domingo gets cast in the lead acting role with several character actors in support, such as Chris Rock, Glynn Truman and Jeffrey Wright.

Domingo shows Rustin to have been a determined black American wanting freedom and justice for his brothers and sisters, but also a sophisticated person of intellect with many layers.

And the black civil rights movement is shown to be made up of many different groups, each of which with its own charismatic leadership that do not necessarily agree on the next steps for the movement.

Wolfe shows how the black leadership was divided on staging a national protest, when everything that had been accomplished so far was done on more of a regional and state level, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Resistance is so severe that Rustin even has problems at first in recruiting civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr onto the program. But soon enough, Rustin and his idea are embraced by the King family.

A jazz score by Branford Marsalis creates scene advances and moves the narrative on a bit as the day of the march approaches, as well as popular music of the time and the original song performed by Lenny Kravitz, Road to Freedom.

Wolfe keeps the focus of the camera on Rustin ever in the background organizing the march with the work just getting going once Martin Luther King Jr. commits to his participation. Rustin eventually has just 7 weeks to ensure sufficient numbers of people in attendance at the National Mall in Washington DC and that those who do attend will be safe and well taken care of.

The director does a good job not getting distracted by the larger draws to tell the story, such as the influence of Mahatma Gandhi, or civil rights leader Medgar Evers, whose assassination is announced during the film runtime of 1 hr 48 minutes.

And the film is not at all about making political buttons and handing out placards.

Rustin’s character is revealed to be more than just that of an organizer. Rustin is shown to be a person with a good heart, needing to rely on sound judgment as the politics within the black civil rights movement will likely clash irrevocably for the first time with the politicians on Capitol Hill moving for better or worse the national agenda.

Wolfe takes some care to infuse black culture into the film with many scenes taking place inside so as to highlight the civil rights discord occurring among many powerful and influential people of the era.

Close cropped portrait shots are frequently used to accent the intimate moments being shared with the audience while the tone and atmosphere of the era and the importance of the moment is established throughout the film.

Scenes bleed from organizing in boardrooms and committee offices to the personal life of a member of the cocktail generation trying to find relaxing contemplative moments in bars and at home in the living room.

The overall vision is a bit week, with Rustin portrayed as a backroom organizer crucial to the cause but who is humble enough to remain in the backrooms and so that is where the camera remains, without even being tempted one bit to follow the national civil rights leaders around for a few minutes on the day of the march.

The script is outstanding though, showing through dialogue and the intimacy of many scenes that Rustin was an intellectual well motivated by the hoped for freedom and justice deserving of all Americans and not the selfishness and greed for the limelight shown by national politicians to be plaguing Washington.

And once the start time is established, the narrative is linear, but moves from the public life to the private life, and back and forth again, instead of flashing back or leaping forward to maintain interest, before returning to the time on screen.

Rustin has been streaming on Netflix since November 17.