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The Searchers: Screening Civil Rights |
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My site will argue that
White-Native American relations in John Ford's The Searchers reflect
anxieties over Black-White relations during the beginning of the Civil
Rights movement.
I will give an overview of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s, with particular attention paid to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. The discussion will feature materials from popular publications of the time that expressed tension over Civil Rights advances for Blacks leading to miscegenation and diminished opportunities for Whites. I will also analyze the relationship between Whites and Native Americans in The Searchers. I will focus on Ethan's virulent racism, Marty's status as part-Cherokee, and the film's depiction of the miscegenation threat. I'll tie the discussion of White-Native American relations to the context of the Civil Rights movement. At this point, I think I want to put the history and the film discussion on the same page. If the page gets too long, though, I may make two pages. I will conclude my argument by concentrating on how the film both reflected and shaped mainstream responses to the Civil Rights movement. |
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