As a postscript to my coverage of the Democratic presidential candidates forum at Howard University, I attended a rare screening of “The Man,” a 1972 film starring James Earl Jones as the “first Negro president.”
Sen. Douglass Dilman (Jones), President Pro Tempore of the Senate, is thrust into the presidency after the president and house speaker die in an accident and the vice president suffers a stroke.
The script was written by Rod Serling whose TV series, “The Twilight Zone,” used to scare the bejesus out of me when I was a kid.
The film raises the issue of race, i.e., whether the “White House is white enough” with a black man in the Oval Office, and could a black man ever be elected president. Hmm.
At the same time, First Daughter Wanda, played by Janet MacLachlan bemoans “super aggressive wives with pretensions on the White House.”
The screening is part of the Afro-Punk Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The festival runs until July 7. For more info, click here.
