Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored (1995)

Director:

Tim Reid

Writers (WGA):

Clifton L. Taulbert (book)
Paul W. Cooper (screenplay)

Release Date:

26 January 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

A narrator tells the story of his childhood years in a tightly knit Afro-American community in the deep south under racial segregation.

Plot Keywords:

Community | Segregation | Schoolteacher | Childbirth | Political Activism

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Al Freeman Jr.	...	Poppa
Phylicia Rashad	...	Ma Ponk
Leon	...	Uncle Melvin
Paula Kelly	...	Ma Pearl
Salli Richardson-Whitfield	...	Miss Alice (as Salli Richardson)
Anna Maria Horsford	...	Miss Annie
Bernie Casey	...	Mr. Walter
Isaac Hayes	...	Preacher Hurn
Willis Norwood Jr.	...	Cliff (12 Yrs.)
Karen Malina White	...	Mary
Damon Hines	...	Cliff at 16
Iona Morris	...	Nila Fontaine
Phill Lewis	...	Sammy (19 Yrs.) / Narrator
Taj Mahal	...	Mr. Will
Polly Bergen	...	Miss Maybry

MPAA:

Rated PG for thematic elements including mild violence, language, and sensuality.

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

Company:

BET Pictures

Quotes:

narrator: Everyone clung to the idea that if you worked hard, you get a piece of the American dream.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Phat Girlz (2006)

Soundtrack:

Maybe Tomorrow

Too Nice!

This was a very nice, scaled down version of how it really was in the Deep South. The movie did not even begin to depict the real horror Blacks faced each day. There was just a hint of the KKK, Jim Crow and the plantation mentality Blacks had to endure. I kept waiting for those historical, explosive events, we all knew to be the law of the land, to explode onto the screen, but it never happened.

Life was unbearable; Blacks were looked upon as animals and treated as such. I walked away from this movie feeling like life was almost a bowl of cherries.

I find it so odd that people are tired of hearing about the Black experience but never get tired of all the holocaust movies. 6 million Jews were slaughtered over a 6 year period (approx) -- hundreds of thousand Blacks were hung, beaten, raped, shot, humiliated and abused to death over a period of 150+ years, not to mention the suicides that took place on the slave ships in route to America. Admittedly, the holocaust was an atrocity, hopefully never to be repeated, while discrimination of Blacks is still a reality. Too bad there are no great movies that tell the Black Plight the way it should be told.