The Book-Of-The-Semester Project 2007 - 2008

1.  What two major events took place on the American political scene in 1968?

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2. In that year, three of Sidney Poitier’s films were the #1, 2, and 3 box office hits of the country.  Which films were they?

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3. What is the main story of Guess Who′s Coming to Dinner? How did director Stanley Kramer get Columbia Pictures to accept a budget for the film? Despite Sidney Poitier′s fame at the time, what did he have to do to win over the support of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, the other leading actors in the film? How does Poitier excuse the reasoning behind this behavior? What kind of role did Poitier play in this film that made him seem ” than most whites could ever hope to be?

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4. What was the criticism of Poitier in the New York Times article entitled “Why Do White Folks Love Sidney Poitier So?” How did this article echo the criticism of so many black activists at the time, such as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown?

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5. How did Sidney Poitier react to criticism of him for the roles he played and for the real-life positions he took as a man? What was his viewpoint about anger, defiance, and rage? How did his references to Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul Robeson, and Nelson Mandela support – or possibly, help to give birth to – his philosophy?

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6. How did Poitier attribute the “sense of survival” (132) he learned on Cat Island, along with the sense of who he was, to his not being full of the same rage that consumed the lives of his black American counterparts?

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7. Where does In the Heat of the Night take place, and what role did Poitier play in it with fellow actor Rod Steiger? How did Poitier get director Walter Mirisch to change the script? How did this change reflect a confrontational stance? For Sidney Poitier, nevertheless, what scene was the “emotional center” (137) of the film?

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8. In regard to the civil rights movement, whom does Sidney Poitier praise for getting the movement into full swing?

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