Nationtime

The National Black Political Convention, or the Gary Convention, was held on March 10-12, 1972 in Gary, Indiana. This movie recounts the highlights of that event, with narration by Sidney Poitier

Time is supposed to heal all wounds. More than half a century after the events in this movie, I find it makes me fearful. It's filled with angry people, shouting. When Bobby Seale is at the microphone, he shouts. My immediate reaction was surprise: doesn't the convention have an amplification system? Then I realized this was a style of speech-making developed for speaking to crowds when there were no amps. In a closed hall, with a sound system, it's angry. Half a century ago, had I seen this, it would have frightened me. It still does today.

"I am 21, it is '72, I am a Black man, and I want a Black party! I do not trust white Republicans or white Democrats!" -- Jesse Jackson

The power in this documentary was in its early speeches, the first from Richard Hatcher, mayor of Gary, Indiana, and then the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who both eloquently air the grievances of the black community in 1972. Aside from dissatisfaction with the unjust war in Vietnam, sadly many of them are still applicable in 2025. At the top of it is underrepresentation in political power despite being one in five votes for the Democrats, and the need for economic justice if not outright reparations. It's a country where heroin in the black ghettos is not treated as an emergency, whereas if it was in white suburbs, it would be a different story - and we've seen that play out over decades with one drug after another. They also point out the need to get out the vote, and frankly the need to be better in the community, to not commit crimes or become addicts.

Unfortunately, as an overall documentary, this is pretty weak. This is nowhere more evident than when we see activist Imamu Amiri Baraka addressing delegates from the states and getting their votes over a resolution on the National Black Political Agenda that was generated late the evening before but we never hear the content of this resolution. In fact, even later when there is later drama and parts of the contingent from Michigan vent their displeasure by walking out, we have no idea what the trouble is over. Instead get things like sociopolitical comedy from Dick Gregory, music from Isaac Hayes, and some token appearances from Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz. In between segments we get disembodied, ethereal narration from Sidney Poitier and poetry from Harry Belafonte, two gentlemen I highly admire, but who were distractions from getting actual content out of William Greaves. In the end I had no idea what had been concluded, if anything, aside from the general desire to "come together." Based on other summaries of what actually happened, it seems to me that didn't happen and that there was a disorganization that was glossed over by Greaves.