To Sir, with Love (1967) was my introduction to Sidney Poitier, who sadly passed away on 6th January aged 94. It’s an adaptation of E.R Braithewaite’s autobiographical novel focusing on an east London high school and racism in the 1950s.
I remember sitting down with my family at a young age watching what was to me, an ancient film. I recognised the charm and beauty of what was essentially the original Sister Act 2. A film with a black educator—not intending to be in the school—ending up teaching in the inner city and changing young students’ lives. Poitier plays Mr. Thackeray, a Windrush immigrant from British Guiana, seeking better times in the British Empire’s motherland. London was the place for Thackeray and the story was that the streets were paved with gold, or so they said. The reality was rampant racism, in a rainy city paved with extreme poverty. The example of what this fictional character met in the capital and beyond was a small fraction of the reality of the discrimination black British citizens experienced in the 1950s and 1960s.
Poitier came from extremely humble beginnings. Born into a farmer family supplying tomatoes to Miami from the British Bahamas, being born prematurely in the Florida city gave him American and Bahamian/British citizenship all at once. That meant he was able to travel back to Miami, then on to New York aged 15. He applied to join a scheme at the American Negro Theatre, in which fellow actor and activist Harry Belafonte also trained, learning in the styles of Shakespeare and Dickens.
He was initially rejected from the theatre on the grounds that his accent was ‘too Caribbean’ and his inability to read well enough. While working as a dishwasher, an elderly Jewish gentleman—a colleague working as a waiter—spotted Poitier looking as if he were reading a newspaper. He asked Poitier about the day’s news. The actor replied, “I can’t tell you what’s up in the paper, because I can’t read very well.” From then, the elderly gentleman took the time to teach him reading and annunciation, the very skills he would need to memorise scripts and go on to be one of the finest actors of cinema’s golden age. Poitier would go on to credit him in many speeches and interviews, adding that his biggest regret as an actor was not being able to find and thank his patient bespectacled teacher before he died.
To Sir, With Love is one of a handful of 1960s films that can be considered as Poitier’s collection of most popular and groundbreaking movies, with performances worthy of awards nominations and further success. For In the Heat of the Night, Poitier portrays intellectual Detective Virgil Tibbs investigating a murder in the Deep South where he faces stark racial prejudice. The film contains a game-changing, iconic scene. Before then, Hollywood production codes wouldn’t allow for any sort of violence against a white man by someone from a racial or ethnic minority, be they black, Indigenous American, or any other. This, alongside portrayals of homosexuality and interracial relationships, were forbidden.
Although Tibbs is a figure of authority, in one scene he is struck in the face by a racist white character in an attempt to put him in his place, so to speak. Tibbs instantly strikes this character back in a scene that shocked the USA (and also wasn’t scripted). Never before had a black man struck a white man on the silver screen. Although significant issues regarding race remain in the film, this memorable and groundbreaking scene this scene forced the audiences watching it to take a long look at themselves in the mirror. It was the beginning of a shift that changed cinema forever.
Also worthy of note in this collection is Guess who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), starring Katherine Hepburn. Created under the direction of Stanley Kramer, with dialogue beautifully scripted by William Rose, it’s the story of an interracial relationship. Poitier’s character, Dr. John Prentice, navigates the scepticism of both his own parents and the liberal parents of his white lover, Joanna Drayton (Katherine Houghton). Their relationship forces Drayton’s parents (Played by Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) to challenge their own unconscious racial biases. That very same year, a battle in the courts led to the US Supreme Court ruling that any state law forbidding ‘miscegenation’ was unconstitutional.
“He had a vocal precision and physical power and grace that at moments seemed almost supernatural. His most widely remembered films are the ones that broke racial barriers in Hollywood.”
Director Martin Scorsese
Poitier went on to direct and act in many films, starring alongside the likes of Gene Wilder, Dan Ackroyd, and Richard Gere. He also went on to appear in sequels to both To Sir, With Love and In The Heat of the Night. One of his later films saw Poitier portray Nelson Mandela, the South African revolutionary and then went first Black president of the country, who himself took inspiration from Poitier. The TV movie Mandela and de Klerk (1997) chronicling the negotiations between South African President F.W. de Klerk (played by Michael Caine) and Mandela that led to the end of the Apartheid regime.
Poitier is also in many ways a revolutionary, challenging prejudice and bigotry whenever confronted with it in his line of work. In an interview filmed in 1968, the same year that Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) was assassinated, Poitier takes questions from the press. There are many questions surrounding his support for MLK & racial issues. You can see the clear and righteous anger in his face, yet he remains dignified and poised in his answers. He challenges the press skillfully, asking why the focus was on race and not the work of the artist before them.
In later life, Poitier became renowned for his diplomatic and ambassadorial work. Among his many accolades, Queen Elizabeth knighted him in 1974. In 1997, he became Bahama’s ambassador to Japan, a role he held for ten years. From 2002 to 2007, he was the Bahamas’ ambassador to UNESCO.
At a time of low representation, his grace, stereotype-breaking dignity, artistry, and intelligence allowed him to progress to heights rarely achieved by actors in Hollywood. It allowed him to become a trailblazer and pioneer. He changed the future trajectory of the many black lives and taught us that we can strive for the stars.
To sir, rest in power.
Words by Lance Casely-Hayford
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