On Juneteenth

by Annette Gordon-Reed

More likely, it was the character Billy Jack with whom they identified. The half-Indian martial arts master and Green Beret had decided to protect the hippies. His support gave my fellow townspeople permission to identify with, and champion, characters who in real life many of them would have disdained. That he was part White also made him safe. Would the appeal have been as great if the character had been a full-blooded Native American? Could audience members have lost themselves in such a character so thoroughly, giving themselves permission to imagine themselves as a non-White person? Certainly, the people who made movies during those days would have wondered about that. It was an article of faith in Hollywood that White audiences were not keen on watching films with people of color as the main characters. That common wisdom has been exploded in the past few decades. It was also important that the film presented right and wrong in extremely broad strokes. Billy Jack’s purity, proved by his Native heritage, helped make the choices very clear to my fellow townspeople, who undoubtedly saw the movie differently than I. The townspeople on the screen looked awfully like some people I knew in Conroe and Livingston. I have no way of knowing the answer, but I wonder if any of them made the connection between the racial intolerance—the lack of tolerance for difference, in general—displayed in the film and the forms of intolerance that had been a part of our town. Perhaps sitting ...