Booker’s Place: A Mississppi Story

In 1966, filmmaker Frank De Felitta made a documentary for NBC News about life in the Mississippi Delta. When it aired on television, many white Southerners were outraged at the portrayal of the South as racist, a fact that many preferred to deny. One scene in particular eventually destroyed the life of a man named Booker Wright. Booker was an African-American man working in a ‘whites only’ restaurant in Greenwood. His powerful performance explaining his position serving the white community resulted in a beating so brutal he was hospitalized. Forty-six years after his televised appearance, Booker’s granddaughter, Yvette Johnson, and Frank’s son, director Raymond De Felitta, meet in Greenwood to discover what led Booker to commit his courageous act of “accidental activism.” They also explore the man’s untimely murder and uncover the role the filmmaker’s father, Frank De Felitta, played in determining his fate.

http://www.hotdocs.ca//film/title/bookers_place_a_mississippi_story

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