This
Week's Column
“Twenty-Four”
week of 22 June 2008
© Janus Adams
In November 2001, with uncanny timing, the hit TV show “24” premiered just eight weeks after “9/11.” For six seasons since, it has revved up audiences and ratings with action-packed fictional tales of terrorist threats in twenty-four hour increments.
What better way to prepare for and prevent terrorism than by experiencing it through a television series? say fans. Well, if it’s terrorism we’re steeling ourselves against; a reality-based American script might prove instructive.
INT. NIGHT, MISSISSIPPI JAIL – JUNE 10, 1963
Sharecropper/Civil Rights activist FANNIE LOU HAMER struggles, bloodied and bruised, on a bare cot. A SHERIFF and DEPUTY watch menacingly as a BLACK MAN, tears and sweat blurring his vision, beats HAMER. Off-screen, women scream in pain.
WOMEN (o.s.)
No. Don’t hit me. No. Please…
HAMER, silent, deflects the blows.
CUT TO:
TITLE CARD: WINONA, MISSISSIPPI - EARLIER THAT DAY
INT. BUS TERMINAL
Buoyant, bearing “Freedom Fighting Hot Rolls” and “Brotherhood Punch,” a group of BLACK WOMEN including HAMER and fellow Civil Rights activist ANNELL PONDER enter the Trailways COLORED waiting room. A WAITRESS eyes the BLACK WOMEN, shrieks, and reaches for the phone.
WAITRESS
Sheriff, I can’t take no more.
CAMERA pans the scene: the WAITRESS clutching the phone, annoyed WHITE CUSTOMERS, faded rest room signs read WHITE and COLORED. Two BLACK WOMEN veer from their group toward the WHITE sign.
Police cars drive up. The SHERIFF and DEPUTY enter, guns drawn on the BLACK WOMEN. PONDER inches toward the window, notepad in hand.
CLOSE ON police cars. EXTREME CLOSE ON license plates. PONDER’s face. Pad. PONDER’s hand. Pen. She writes the police’s license plate numbers. SHERIFF’s face.
SHERIFF
Get ‘em.
Running from every direction DEPUTIES swarm the BLACK WOMEN, pummel them with sticks, and drag them from the terminal.
CAMERA sweeps the scene. WAITRESS serving, WHITES relaxes. No BLACKS. A scrap of paper on the floor. CLOSE ON scrap with partial license plate number.
CUT TO:
INT. NIGHT, MISSISSIPPI JAIL – JUNE 10, 1963
Back in HAMER’s cell. Screams off-screen. In the background, a bloodied PONDER raises herself on the bars. HAMER alternates between protecting her head and pulling down her skirt as she writhes from the beating until the BLACK MAN stops, spent.
BLACK MAN
No more.
CLOSE ON a White finger cocking a gun.
BLACK MAN
Then shoot me.
CUT TO:
TITLE CARD: TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA – JUNE 11, 1963
EXT. MORNING - UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
A White MOB. Glaring sun. Helmeted FEDERAL TROOPS rim the crowd.
CLOSE ON a car, VIVIAN MALONE and JAMES HOOD, two Black students, in the backseat surrounded by jeering MOB.
CUT TO:
INT. DAY – WHITE HOUSE OVAL OFFICE
PRESIDENT KENNEDY signs and seals an official order.
CUT TO:
LONG SHOT on GOV. GEORGE WALLACE inside glass doorway. WALLACE emerges. DEPUTY ATTY. GEN. backed by FEDERAL TROOPS, brandishing official order, mounts the steps to meet him,.
WALLACE
I draw the line in the dust ... and I say segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever...
CUT TO:
TITLE CARD: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – JUNE 11, 1963
EXT. DAY - BOSTON CITY HALL PLAZA
A picket line of BLACK PARENTS and BLACK CHILDREN chant in unison “1…2…3…4…14.” Placards read: “FOURTEEN DEMANDS,” “FREE OUR SCHOOLS,” “UP-SOUTH BOSTON.”
CUT TO:
MOB, FEDERAL TROOPS, WALLACE exiting scene, MALONE and HOOD walk up the steps and into the school. PRESIDENT KENNEDY takes to the airwaves.
INT. NIGHT – OVAL OFFICE, JUNE 11, 1963. 8:00 PM
KENNEDY
Good evening my fellow citizens….I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this day’s events ….
TITLE CARD: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI – JUNE 11, 1963
EXT. NIGHT, CITY SIDE STREETS
Headlights. A lone driver, MEDGAR EVERS, turns into his driveway. KENNEDY’s speech continues, voice-over to the action.
KENNEDY
It ought to be possible for every American to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated.…
EVERS gathers his briefcase, a file labeled NAACP. Exits his car.
KENNEDY
As one would wish his children to be treated….
EVERS starts for his front door. BYRON DE LA BECKWITH steps from the bushes, shotgun raised. Shot echoes. EVERS falls, mortally wounded in the back.
KENNEDY
But this is not the case.
In this same 24-hour action-packed tale of terrorism, Marian Wright Edelman receives her law degree from Yale. In future episodes she takes up the mantel of MEDGAR EVERS, defends Civil Rights shero FANNIE LOU HAMER, and founds the Children’s Defense Fund. Now that’s a real “24.”
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