A viewing of the documentary “Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story,” by the Bridge Thursday night brought forth a variety of emotions regarding the state of Greenwood’s race relations over the past 46 years.
The documentary, shown in the Episcopal Church of the Nativity’s Fellowship Hall, told the story of black waiter Booker Wright, a one-time employee of Lusco’s, which was included in a segment of a 1966 NBC news documentary, “Mississippi: A Self-Portrait.”
Wright lost his job at the popular Greenwood restaurant shortly after the documentary aired. He was killed seven years later in a shooting at his own restaurant, Booker’s Place.
“It’s a learning process to me,” said Tommie Williams of Greenwood, one of 27 people who attended the airing by the Bridge.
Williams, a black Greenwood minister, commented on the impact of the 90-minute documentary by filmmakers Raymond De Felitta, David Zellerford and Yvette Johnson.
“I was sitting there watching, and I said, ‘You know what? There’s not anything we can do right now that will bring Uncle Booker back to us.’ It was a learning process for us,” he said.
Greenwood has made great strides since the dark days of 1966, but “we still have a long ways to go,” he said.
Williams said the entire community — black and white —must come together “to coordinate as a family, not as a segregated family.”
Sherron Wright, who is not related to Booker Wright, said the documentary didn’t provide any easy answers.
“We can take that and look at the price that somebody else paid. There were a lot of people who paid the price for us to have the few rights that we have,” she said.
Getting mired in racial mistrust is a sure sign of failure, she said: “If we get stuck there, then we’re no better off.”
Carl Winters said he knew Booker Wright when he was growing up.
“I was 11 years old when this happened. My father and Booker worked together. He had a cafe, too,” he said.
Winters said the documentary brought home the fact that hurtful words and actions more than four decades ago can still inflict pain today.
“It really hurts to know that people of race were treated that way,” he said.
“Now, I hold my head up and look you in the eye, you in the eye and you in the eye and speak at talk to you and hug you. At that time, you’d get hung for that,” Winters said.
Bill Ware, who knew Booker Wright before leaving the state in 1963, said the documentary was unfair to Lusco’s. The restaurant was located in the “most integrated community in the country” at the time of the 1966 documentary, he said.
He noted that New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, one door down from the restaurant, had been in existence for decades before Lusco’s opened. In addition, several black-owned stores flanked the restaurant on Carrollton Avenue.
Ware said Wright likely left Lusco’s simply because the restaurant couldn’t be expected to control its clientele.
Bridge member Anita Batman said she’s seen firsthand the changes that have been made since returning to Greenwood earlier this decade.
“Now, a majority of the Board of Supervisors is black. A majority of the City Council is black. The police chief is black, and we’ve had a black mayor,” she said.
None of that was reflected in the documentary, she said.
Charlot Ray said that while those changes in the politics of Greenwood have been significant there have been other changes as well.
“I can remember, and you can too, when a lot of people called blacks n-----s. A lot of people did,” she said.
“I’m so glad it is different now,” she said. “We had to move forward, maybe in baby steps. In some ways, a lot of folks had to die off. They all had opinions that were never going to change.”
When Sherron Wright expressed frustration with the Bridge moving beyond the talking stage, Pann Powers said the group was trying to do just that.
“We are working within in the entire community to try to better the situation for everybody,” Powers said.
The Bridge will hold its next meeting at 6 p.m. Aug. 23.
The Mississippi premiere of “Booker’s Place” will be held Sept. 20 at Mississippi Valley State University. The filmmakers — De Felitta, Zellerford and Johnson—are scheduled to attend and answer questions from the audience.
A last-minute dust-up over the playing of the video by the Bridge was settled peacefully, according to Zellerford. He said it has been ironed out because the Bridge viewing involved a personal copy of the movie being screened for a group to discuss, not a premiere.
“For the record, the producers are happy that everyone is seeing the film. And we’re dying to get down to talk to you guys and answer any questions that you have,” Zellerford said.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
