"The Killing Fields" review

“The Killing Fields” is a film about sacrifice and the power of friendship amid destruction and horror. Directed by Roland Joffe, the film depicts the genocidal decimation of Cambodia during Pol Pot’s murderous reign of the country during the 1970s. Released in 1984 and nominated for seven Academy Awards, “The Killing Fields” is significant today as war criminals from the barbaric Khmer Rouge are being brought to justice and many others have yet to answer for their acts of inhumanity. The film recalls a tragedy that should never be forgotten, but it is the human story within this larger framework that draws the viewer in.

Based on a true story, Joffe’s film opens in August 1973 when Sydney Schanberg, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times arrives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, to report on the growing unrest in the country. There, he meets Pran, a photojournalist who serves as his guide. The contrast in the two men’s personalities is evident early. Schanberg, played by Sam Waterston, is the classic reporter-type – a cynical, impatient firebrand who smokes cigarettes and drinks Johnnie Walker Black. Pran is mild and easy going – a family man with a gentle, helpful disposition. Shortly after the two men meet, a U.S. military B-52 plane bombs the town of Neak Leung. Pran helps Schanberg sneak into the town to get a first-hand account of an incident the U.S. government wants to keep secret.

The film later jumps to 1975 as hostilities grow more intense in Cambodia. The United States clears out of its embassy and reporters take temporary residence in the French embassy. Khmer Rouge soldiers take Schanberg and other journalists hostage. In one intense scene, the men are held at gunpoint, squatting over the ground with their arms raised and hands behind their heads. A soldier stands behind them, pointing a rifle to their heads, prepared to fire at anyone who breaks position. Pran, as the only Cambodian in the group, is spared such torture. He pleads with Rouge officials and successfully negotiates their release.

Schanberg arranges for Pran’s family to flee to the United States, but he stays behind to help report on Cambodia’s unraveling. He plans to join them later, but as the French embassy shuts down and the press prepares to leave the country, the Khmer Roug orders all Cambodians within its walls, turned over. Frantic to get Pran safely out of the country, his friends set out to make him a fake passport, but their plans fall through and they have to leave him behind.

Pran is enslaved on one of Pol Pot’s collectivist farms. The most chilling parts of the film are not the violent scenes, graphic as they are. Rather, they are the scenes of people being brainwashed as part of Pol Pot’s re-education campaign. It is “Year Zero.” Your lives as you knew them do not matter anymore. Forget them. Children, blot out your parents. We are your family now.

Back in the states, Schanberg keeps in contact with Pran’s family and constantly works with humanitarian organizations, trying to secure his release. He wins a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Cambodia’s human rights crisis, but the honor exacerbates the guilt he feels over leaving his friend behind. Schanberg could have never written his stories without Pran’s assistance. He wanted Pran to stay behind and help him. If Schanberg would have helped Pran leave when he had a chance, he could have spared his friend the horror of the killing fields. Pran saved Schanberg’s life. But Schanberg’s selfishness could have led to Pran’s death.

Pran does escape, however, crawling through swamps and jungles, hiding from armed soldiers and leaving behind dead traveling companions. He escapes to Thailand. In the poignant final scene, he is reunited with his old friend. Schanberg humbly asks, “Forgive me,” to which a smiling Pran answers, “There’s nothing to forgive.”

Haing S. Ngor won an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his brilliant portrayal of Pran. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9FgzH4xizU Amazingly, he had never acted before being cast in this movie. But the role was not a stretch for him. Ngor, himself, had lived a Khmer Rouge concentration camp. His wife died there, giving birth. Ngor held to a locket bearing her picture for the rest of his life. He never remarried. In researching “The Killing Fields,” I was saddened to learn that he was shot to death in a Los Angeles in 1996 during a robbery by an Asian-American gang. He was killed when he would not hand over the locket. http://haingsngorfoundation.org

Dith Pran immigrated to the United States and had a long career as a photojournalist for the New York Times, while speaking out about Cambodia’s genocide and working for human rights on the side. He stayed with the Times until his death in 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/nyregion/31dith.html

Waterson was also excellent in his role as Schanberg. People only familiar with Waterson as the prosecutor in TV’s “Law and Order” will be surprised to see him looking so young. (I’m still mad about the original “Law and Order” being cancelled.) For “The Killing Fields,” he embodied the character of the hard-nosed reporter, and he had a great South Boston accent. By the way, Schanberg is still working as a journalist. http://www.thenation.com/authors/sydney-h-schanberg

I watched “The Killing Fields” as an extra credit project for a geography class. This film is relevant to what we studied in class. The goal of the class is that students will come away with greater geographical literacy, a deeper knowledge and respect for the many cultures throughout the world and an understanding of how we are all interconnected within the global community and our actions have an impact on one another.

The opening scenes of “The Killing Fields” reveal a beautiful country. It is easy to see why Chris Menges won an Academy Award for cinematography for “The Killing Fields” because his work is brilliant. The film’s opening shots evoke bliss, a meditation on God’s handiwork as a sunrise backdrop envelopes a pastoral scene. Farm oxen call to mind this country’s ancient traditions. A child is shown wearing a helmet. It is a foreshadowing of the rouge military uprising that will decimate the country, upsetting the quiet of its rural land and destroying the innocence of its children.

Joffe’s film is strong in its indictment of the U.S. role in fomenting Pol Pot’s rape of Cambodia. Early in the film, we hear radio news reports of Pres. Nixon’s illegal bombing of the country. It speaks volumes about the arrogance and abuse of power that Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, would act in secret away from the auspices of Congress and the American people so they could escalate the Vietnam War and spend billions in bombing raids that ultimately led to at least over two million lives lost among Cambodians, Vietnamese and Americans, collectively. Cambodia was a peaceful country intent on staying neutral in the war between its neighbor, Vietnam and the U.S. The North Vietnamese used spots on Cambodia’s border as supply routes, something the country could not have stopped and this was used to justify bombing them. Unfortunately, the bombing led to instability as Cambodia’s government – favored by its people – was overthrown and the Khmer Rouge, which had been only as small nuisance, was able to seize control.

In this way, “The Killing Fields” not only illustrates global connectedness and the impact one country’s actions can have on another – in particular the consequences a powerful nation’s decisions can have on a weaker one. The film should lead us to question U.S. foreign policy today and if we are being told the truth about our military actions in the world. In Jaffe’s film, when the U.S. government cannot deny the bombing at Neak Leung, the military feeds the press a whitewashed PR version of the story. The media today is gargantuan compared to what it was 37 years ago, but are we getting better coverage? Apathy, a lack of geographic literacy and our diversion by that opiate of the masses -- entertainment – seem to leave conditions ripe for governmental obfuscation.

We have seen several videos and had several discussions as a class about the loss, or potential loss of cultures. My classmates and I share the consensus that it is sad when this happens. I think we have all come away with a deeper respect for other ways of life. That is another reason why “The Killing Fields” is relevant. The Khmer Rouge tried to send century’s old traditions down the memory hole. From Cambodia’s Angkor kingdom, which ruled from 900 to 1200, the country has a history of Hinduism. Like its neighbors, Laos, Tailand and Burma, Cambodia has a rich culture steeped in Theravada Buddhism. Yet the Khmer Rouge sought to obliterate all of that and, as a classmate put it, take Cambodia “back to the stone age.”

When people in Cambodia share family bonds and worship as they please, they overcome the evil of the Khmer Rouge. However, many young people are not being told the truth about their country’s history. Their textbooks glaze over Pol Pot’s wipeout of the country. Like Hitler, Pol Pot committed suicide before he could be brought to justice. The government has been slow to pursue others. A UN backed tribunal in Cambodia recently sentenced the chief Khmer Rouge executioner, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch to imprisonment, albeit to only 19 years. http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Editorial-Board-Blog/2010/0727/In-the-verdict-against-Khmer-Rouge-jailer-Duch-and-what-really-got-convicted At least, that is something. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said he does not want any more Khmer Rouge trials. That would mean Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s second in command who has been under arrest since 2007, would not be brought to trial. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0730/From-C

These men are among those most responsible for putting Cambodia through a holocaust and the world should care. If “The Killing Fields” leads people to care, then it has done a good thing.

Gateway film:

“Enemies of the People” – This documentary about the Khmer Rouge genocide won a special jury prize at the 2010 Sundance Awards. The film is being shown in limited screenings, but none are scheduled for in the Wichita area so we might have to wait for the DVD.

Gateway books:

“First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.)” by Loung Ung. This book is one of several memoirs by survivors of Cambodia’s killing fields.

“Sideshow, Revised Edition: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia” by William Shawcross. In an updated version of a book Shawcross originally published in 1978, the British journalist details the history and connection between U.S. foreign policy and the killing fields.

"The Killing Fields" review

“The Killing Fields” is a film about sacrifice and the power of friendship amid destruction and horror. Directed by Roland Joffe, the film depicts the genocidal decimation of Cambodia during Pol Pot’s murderous reign of the country during the 1970s. Released in 1984 and nominated for seven Academy Awards, “The Killing Fields” is significant today as war criminals from the barbaric Khmer Rouge are being brought to justice and many others have yet to answer for their acts of inhumanity. The film recalls a tragedy that should never be forgotten, but it is the human story within this larger framework that draws the viewer in.

Based on a true story, Joffe’s film opens in August 1973 when Sydney Schanberg, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times arrives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, to report on the growing unrest in the country. There, he meets Pran, a photojournalist who serves as his guide. The contrast in the two men’s personalities is evident early. Schanberg, played by Sam Waterston, is the classic reporter-type – a cynical, impatient firebrand who smokes cigarettes and drinks Johnnie Walker Black. Pran is mild and easy going – a family man with a gentle, helpful disposition. Shortly after the two men meet, a U.S. military B-52 plane bombs the town of Neak Leung. Pran helps Schanberg sneak into the town to get a first-hand account of an incident the U.S. government wants to keep secret.

“The Killing Fields” is a film about sacrifice and the power of friendship amid destruction and horror. Directed by Roland Joffe, the film depicts the genocidal decimation of Cambodia during Pol Pot’s murderous reign of the country during the 1970s. Released in 1984 and nominated for seven Academy Awards, “The Killing Fields” is significant today as war criminals from the barbaric Khmer Rouge are being brought to justice and many others have yet to answer for their acts of inhumanity. The film recalls a tragedy that should never be forgotten, but it is the human story within this larger framework that draws the viewer in.

Based on a true story, Joffe’s film opens in August 1973 when Sydney Schanberg, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times arrives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, to report on the growing unrest in the country. There, he meets Pran, a photojournalist who serves as his guide. The contrast in the two men’s personalities is evident early. Schanberg, played by Sam Waterston, is the classic reporter-type – a cynical, impatient firebrand who smokes cigarettes and drinks Johnnie Walker Black. Pran is mild and easy going – a family man with a gentle, helpful disposition. Shortly after the two men meet, a U.S. military B-52 plane bombs the town of Neak Leung. Pran helps Schanberg sneak into the town to get a first-hand account of an incident the U.S. government wants to keep secret.

The film later jumps to 1975 as hostilities grow more intense in Cambodia. The United States clears out of its embassy and reporters take temporary residence in the French embassy. Khmer Rouge soldiers take Schanberg and other journalists hostage. In one intense scene, the men are held at gunpoint, squatting over the ground with their arms raised and hands behind their heads. A soldier stands behind them, pointing a rifle to their heads, prepared to fire at anyone who breaks position. Pran, as the only Cambodian in the group, is spared such torture. He pleads with Rouge officials and successfully negotiates their release.

Schanberg arranges for Pran’s family to flee to the United States, but he stays behind to help report on Cambodia’s unraveling. He plans to join them later, but as the French embassy shuts down and the press prepares to leave the country, the Khmer Roug orders all Cambodians within its walls, turned over. Frantic to get Pran safely out of the country, his friends set out to make him a fake passport, but their plans fall through and they have to leave him behind.

Pran is enslaved on one of Pol Pot’s collectivist farms. The most chilling parts of the film are not the violent scenes, graphic as they are. Rather, they are the scenes of people being brainwashed as part of Pol Pot’s re-education campaign. It is “Year Zero.” Your lives as you knew them do not matter anymore. Forget them. Children, blot out your parents. We are your family now.

Back in the states, Schanberg keeps in contact with Pran’s family and constantly works with humanitarian organizations, trying to secure his release. He wins a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Cambodia’s human rights crisis, but the honor exacerbates the guilt he feels over leaving his friend behind. Schanberg could have never written his stories without Pran’s assistance. He wanted Pran to stay behind and help him. If Schanberg would have helped Pran leave when he had a chance, he could have spared his friend the horror of the killing fields. Pran saved Schanberg’s life. But Schanberg’s selfishness could have led to Pran’s death.

Pran does escape, however, crawling through swamps and jungles, hiding from armed soldiers and leaving behind dead traveling companions. He escapes to Thailand. In the poignant final scene, he is reunited with his old friend. Schanberg humbly asks, “Forgive me,” to which a smiling Pran answers, “There’s nothing to forgive.”

Haing S. Ngor won an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his brilliant portrayal of Pran. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9FgzH4xizU Amazingly, he had never acted before being cast in this movie. But the role was not a stretch for him. Ngor, himself, had lived a Khmer Rouge concentration camp. His wife died there, giving birth. Ngor held to a locket bearing her picture for the rest of his life. He never remarried. In researching “The Killing Fields,” I was saddened to learn that he was shot to death in a Los Angeles in 1996 during a robbery by an Asian-American gang. He was killed when he would not hand over the locket. http://haingsngorfoundation.org

Dith Pran immigrated to the United States and had a long career as a photojournalist for the New York Times, while speaking out about Cambodia’s genocide and working for human rights on the side. He stayed with the Times until his death in 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/nyregion/31dith.html

Waterson was also excellent in his role as Schanberg. People only familiar with Waterson as the prosecutor in TV’s “Law and Order” will be surprised to see him looking so young. (I’m still mad about the original “Law and Order” being cancelled.) For “The Killing Fields,” he embodied the character of the hard-nosed reporter, and he had a great South Boston accent. By the way, Schanberg is still working as a journalist. http://www.thenation.com/authors/sydney-h-schanberg

I watched “The Killing Fields” as an extra credit project for a geography class. This film is relevant to what we studied in class. The goal of the class is that students will come away with greater geographical literacy, a deeper knowledge and respect for the many cultures throughout the world and an understanding of how we are all interconnected within the global community and our actions have an impact on one another.

The opening scenes of “The Killing Fields” reveal a beautiful country. It is easy to see why Chris Menges won an Academy Award for cinematography for “The Killing Fields” because his work is brilliant. The film’s opening shots evoke bliss, a meditation on God’s handiwork as a sunrise backdrop envelopes a pastoral scene. Farm oxen call to mind this country’s ancient traditions. A child is shown wearing a helmet. It is a foreshadowing of the rouge military uprising that will decimate the country, upsetting the quiet of its rural land and destroying the innocence of its children.

Joffe’s film is strong in its indictment of the U.S. role in fomenting Pol Pot’s rape of Cambodia. Early in the film, we hear radio news reports of Pres. Nixon’s illegal bombing of the country. It speaks volumes about the arrogance and abuse of power that Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, would act in secret away from the auspices of Congress and the American people so they could escalate the Vietnam War and spend billions in bombing raids that ultimately led to at least over two million lives lost among Cambodians, Vietnamese and Americans, collectively. Cambodia was a peaceful country intent on staying neutral in the war between its neighbor, Vietnam and the U.S. The North Vietnamese used spots on Cambodia’s border as supply routes, something the country could not have stopped and this was used to justify bombing them. Unfortunately, the bombing led to instability as Cambodia’s government – favored by its people – was overthrown and the Khmer Rouge, which had been only as small nuisance, was able to seize control.

In this way, “The Killing Fields” not only illustrates global connectedness and the impact one country’s actions can have on another – in particular the consequences a powerful nation’s decisions can have on a weaker one. The film should lead us to question U.S. foreign policy today and if we are being told the truth about our military actions in the world. In Jaffe’s film, when the U.S. government cannot deny the bombing at Neak Leung, the military feeds the press a whitewashed PR version of the story. The media today is gargantuan compared to what it was 37 years ago, but are we getting better coverage? Apathy, a lack of geographic literacy and our diversion by that opiate of the masses -- entertainment – seem to leave conditions ripe for governmental obfuscation.

We have seen several videos and had several discussions as a class about the loss, or potential loss of cultures. My classmates and I share the consensus that it is sad when this happens. I think we have all come away with a deeper respect for other ways of life. That is another reason why “The Killing Fields” is relevant. The Khmer Rouge tried to send century’s old traditions down the memory hole. From Cambodia’s Angkor kingdom, which ruled from 900 to 1200, the country has a history of Hinduism. Like its neighbors, Laos, Tailand and Burma, Cambodia has a rich culture steeped in Theravada Buddhism. Yet the Khmer Rouge sought to obliterate all of that and, as a classmate put it, take Cambodia “back to the stone age.”

When people in Cambodia share family bonds and worship as they please, they overcome the evil of the Khmer Rouge. However, many young people are not being told the truth about their country’s history. Their textbooks glaze over Pol Pot’s wipeout of the country. Like Hitler, Pol Pot committed suicide before he could be brought to justice. The government has been slow to pursue others. A UN backed tribunal in Cambodia recently sentenced the chief Khmer Rouge executioner, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch to imprisonment, albeit to only 19 years. http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Editorial-Board-Blog/2010/0727/In-the-verdict-against-Khmer-Rouge-jailer-Duch-and-what-really-got-convicted At least, that is something. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said he does not want any more Khmer Rouge trials. That would mean Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s second in command who has been under arrest since 2007, would not be brought to trial. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0730/From-C

These men are among those most responsible for putting Cambodia through a holocaust and the world should care. If “The Killing Fields” leads people to care, then it has done a good thing.

Gateway film:

“Enemies of the People” – This documentary about the Khmer Rouge genocide won a special jury prize at the 2010 Sundance Awards. The film is being shown in limited screenings, but none are scheduled for in the Wichita area so we might have to wait for the DVD.
Gateway books:

“First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.)” by Loung Ung. This book is one of several memoirs by survivors of Cambodia’s killing fields.

“Sideshow, Revised Edition: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia” by William Shawcross. In an updated version of a book Shawcross originally published in 1978, the British journalist details the history and connection between U.S. foreign policy and the killing fields.

Conscience of a Lawyer review

Few Americans are familiar with the name, Clifford Durr, and that’s a shame. A tireless advocate for civil liberties, Durr is one of America’s unsung heroes. John A. Salmond’s book, Conscience of a Lawyer, is an excellent starting point for learning about this unusual man who at great risk to his own reputation, fought to defend the constitutional rights of others.

The term, “conscience of a lawyer” sounds oxymoronic, but in Durr’s case it was true. In the interests of upholding the Constitution, he fought for people who could never afford to pay him. Few attorneys would make such sacrifices, but then Durr didn’t hold the profession in high esteem, himself. However, he did have a love for law.

People with a passing knowledge of Durr likely only know him as the white Southern attorney who posted the money for Rosa Parks’ bond after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Jim Crow era Alabama. That alone is fascinating -- a white man living in the 1950s segregated south standing in favor of racial equality. But by that time, Durr was near the end of his career. His record of fighting for the underdog was long established.

As a young lawyer, he was a New Deal warrior in FDR’s administration. He helped prepare U.S. industry for transition to a wartime economy as entry into World War II loomed closer. While serving as a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) during the 1940s, he fought corporate monopoly of the radio airwaves in favor the public interest. Upon leaving public life in Washington D.C, Durr worked on behalf of unionists and took on cases no other lawyer would touch – of people tarnished by anti-communist witch hunts and African-Americans bullied by racist cops and courts.

Salmond sticks primarily to the public side of Durr’s life. He gives a window into the strains that work, health problems, career and financial setbacks put on his marriage and family, but overall the book is about Durr’s professional life. That is as it should be. He’s not a well-known figure and his public battles against the Establishment of his day are the things Americans should know about. There probably wouldn’t be anything juicy to write about anyway. He was a devoutly religious family man married to the same woman for nearly 50 years and his life was free of scandal, unless one considers what people of the time considered to be his scandalous behavior in treating African-Americans and left-wingers with respect.

The book is insightful in describing how his forward thinking evolved, despite the influence from his family and community. The contradictions between Durr’s career and the culture that formed him make for the most fascinating elements of the book. He was born to Southern gentility, the grandson of affluent slave owners who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, and he retained pride in his Southern heritage throughout his life. As a young man, he subscribed to the paternalistic view of African-Americans he had been enculturated into. Yet, in later adulthood, Durr harbored more enlightened, egalitarian views and tenaciously defended African-Americans who had been wronged by the system. Yet because of the way he was raised, Durr probably never felt comfortable around blacks.

His philosophical views were unique and interesting. Durr never considered himself to be a soldier in the Civil Rights movement. Upholding the rights of African-Americans, to Durr, was a civil liberties issue. He defended them, not because they were black, but because they were American citizens. Durr reasoned that if the constitutional rights of one group could be violated, then the rights of all Americans were vulnerable.

He held unique views about the South. As one born and bred in that region, he took personally the South’s failure to become more tolerant, feeling like he had failed too. Interestingly, while so much of the South seemed backward, he reminded people of its more positive contributions in its history – the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers.

Having worked in the news media, I find his views regarding broadcasting to be amazing and more relevant now than ever. Today, the FCC is nothing more than a rubber stamp for corporations. Durr believed the airwaves belonged to the people, that there should be some restraints on advertising and that space should be reserved for news, educational and cultural programming that served the public interest. As an FCC chair, he constantly challenged corporate mergers and decisions that he felt would take away local autonomy and silence dissenting views, maintaining that the airwaves should be open to a diversity of opinion. His progressive views earned him the umbrage of the broadcast industry, and maybe that’s why there is no one in power fighting for those First Amendment principles today. Few people are going to take on the corporate behometh, and that’s why we have a vapid, hyper-saturated, yet homogenous Media Industrial Complex today. Durr’s take on the media as a public interest would be revolutionary today, but it’s a common sense view in need of revisiting. At least, public TV and radio exists as part of his legacy.

Durr was both Christian and liberal, making his views extremely relevant in 2010. Today, when the Religious Right has hijacked the word, “Christian,” the term seems incompatible with “liberal.” Durr, however, felt that civil liberties and the teachings of Christ went hand-in-hand. His progressive views took him out of good stead with others in his Presbyterian congregation -- people just as prejudiced, judgmental and retrograde as a lot of church members today. After leaving town to defend people branded as communists in a kangaroo court, Durr returned to church and found the Sunday school class he taught to be empty. I’m a churchgoer and Christ follower, myself, and I wonder if I wouldn’t meet the same kind of reaction. It pains me, but I know some people at my church have shared racist chain e-mails about Mexicans and Middle Eastern Muslims. I also know that a member of my church has “Ann Coulter quotes” as a link on her Facebook page. Like Durr, I don’t think Christian love and hatred go together, but apparently churches have been on the wrong side of history for a long time.

As one studying to become a teacher, I want to guide young people toward discovering the lessons of history. Even kindergartners could take something from Durr’s story. The idea of stepping outside your comfort realm, helping people who may be different from you and refusing to stand by when bullies threaten others – that’s a powerful concept. Most adults don’t want to get involved, but hopefully we can counter the mind-numbing effects of an overly saturated media and impart a sense of civic responsibility in the next generation. By exposing students to little known heroes like Durr, we can help raise the level of social consciousness and awareness.

Best line: “Without ever arguing the shame and superstition of institutional religion, he drew sustenance from the Gospel and for him Thomas Jefferson and the First Amendment were the secular equivalents of universal values.” -- Journalist I.F “Izzy” Stone, commenting on Durr after his death in 1975.

Gateway Reading: Outside the Magic Circle by Virginia Durr. Clifford Durr’s wife was even more diehard in her support of social justice and racial equality than he was. More gregarious and outspoken than her somewhat reserved husband, she was also a product of the Old South oligarchy and had to unlearn prejudice just as he did. Her autobiography is thought-provoking and the account of her social activism from the New Deal through the Civil Rights era is riveting.

Bus Ride to Justice by Fred Gray. He is known today as The Civil Rights attorney, a legend who represented Martin Luther King, Jr., the Freedom Riders, Selma-to-Montgomery marchers and victims of the Tuskegee syphilis study. But in 1955, he was a young, wet-behind-the ears attorney fresh out of law school – one of only two African-American lawyers in Montgomery, Alabama. He was the front man in representing Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but behind the scenes he had a lot of help from Clifford Durr.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Roads to Memphis Preview Clip 2

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Roads to Memphis Preview Clip 1

"Roads to Memphis" review

The DVD, Roads to Memphis, an episode of the spectacular PBS series, American Experience, traces the steps taken by Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Earl Ray leading to the fatal moment when Ray shot King to death on the balcony of a Memphis hotel more than 40 years ago.

King was in Memphis to support the city’s striking sanitation workers. By 1968, many of the seemingly insurmountable aims of Civil Rights movement been achieved. Yet, while federal legislation had been enacted to protect African-Americans from discrimination, economic disparities remained, leaving many shut out from the mainstream of society. King was broadening his activism to fight poverty. The tragic irony in this is that is that King was killed, just as he was poised to help people like Ray

Roads to Memphis reveals how Ray and his brothers were raised in a shack and often deprived of necessities, such as food and heating. Their father was in and out of jail, their mother was a prostitute and the boys were looked down upon in school. The Ray family was at the bottom of the heap, ostracized even by poor people in the community who still had more than they did.

At 40 years-old, Ray was a career criminal and escaped fugitive from prison still craving respect and recognition. “Roads to Memphis” is fascinating in the way it reveals how Ray’s state of mind would propel him to kill the leading figure in the Civil Rights struggle. Like many others, Ray killed for the notoriety. He deluded himself with the false belief that killing King would make him a hero. Ray became absorbed in the racist rhetoric of third party presidential candidate and firebrand segregationist George Wallace. The documentary correctly refers to King’s assassination as the “last spasm” of the segregationist south. Historians commented on how Ray believed that by assassinating King, he would help Wallace, reclaim southern tradition and be lauded as a hero.

Today, King is a revered figure whose birthday is a national holiday. He has rightfully gained mainstream acceptance as a historical figure studied in school by kids of all races. However, this normalization tends to leave a watered down view of history that obscures the volatility that gripped American during the 1960s. Roads to Memphis brings back the intensity and turmoil of an era that is growing steadily hazier. Vivid film images of inner city race riots and African Americans, bloody from being beaten by police batons, captures the mood of the country at that time.

The most unsettling thing about this view of the past, however, is not how it differs from today, but how it is the same. Oh sure, King is today looked upon as a hero. There’s even a black president, which would have unheard of 40 years ago. But one only has to see the old film coverage of men in gray Civil War era uniforms unfurling the Confederate flag at a George Wallace rally suffused with rabble-rousing, race-baiting fervor to recognize the parallels with America in 2010.

Today’s ultra conservative politicians and talking heads aren’t attacking African-Americans. Not directly at least. It’s not fashionable today to make African-Americans the enemy; today’s smear artists have new scapegoats -- Mexicans, Muslims and homosexuals. It is chilling to hear historians talk in Roads to Memphis about how southern whites feared racial equality for blacks would mean the loss of their jobs and an end to their way of life.

Racism against African-Americans is not as out in the open as it was 40 or 50 years ago, but isn’t it interesting how the stars and bars and glorification of Confederate soldiers and “southern tradition” occasionally pop up in hyper-conservative pockets, hostile to the Obama presidency? In the tea party movement, opposition to healthcare reform is just a convenient veil to legitimize the underlying racism that becomes more expressive in the sign slogans and crude caricatures of Barack Obama at their rallies.

King laid down his life for people who, for too long, had been kept down by the system. Advocating for the sanitation workers -- their rights to a living wage, safe working conditions and to be treated with dignity – was part of a broader human rights issue. King was on the side of progress and encountered backlash for it. It’s the same deal today. People who push for economic and social justice are scorned by right wing extremists.

Roads to Memphis illustrates how the loaded hate speech of demagogues helped lodge the bullets inside the chamber of the Remington rifle that would cut down the life of a man, for whom non-violence was a way of life. Given the toxic level of rancor polluting the airwaves today, it is something to think about.

People today are being misled into sabatoging their own interests, just as they were 40 years ago. As disenfranchised groups, African-Americans and poor southern whites would have been formidable allies, but such a natural union would have been heretical to the crowds enflamed with white supremacist vituperation. The ruling class had a vested interest in keeping it that way. As long as these two groups were enemies, they were no threat to them.

Gateway film: I Am a Man. Elmore Nickelberry and Leslie Moore -- Memphis sanitation workers who took part in the strike more than 40 years ago --- talked about the tumultuous period in Roads to Memphis. The documentary, I Am a Man, approximately 30 minutes in length focuses on their story. The film can be accessed on-line at http://www.iamamanthemovie.com/.

Gateway Literature: Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael K. Honey. This book by a labor historian gives a detailed account of the strikers’ plight and King’s efforts to help them.