Ashley Bowman: In the heat of the night

Into the heat of the night was a huge difference from the movies that we’d watched previously. Instead of it being a dramatic love story Into the Heat of the Night is a murder mystery with Sidney Poitier playing the lead role of Virgil Tibbs. The movie starts with the murder of Philip Colbert a wealthy white man in the state of Mississippi, and throughout the movie, the redneck Sheriff Bill Gillespie and the elegant northerner Virgil Tibbs must work together to find the murderer. However, what I found most interesting about this movie was the portrayal of race relations. This is because the movie is set in a time when race relations were a prominent subject in America with the rise of the civil rights movement, this movie gives a black man a lead role where he can be intelligent alongside a white man whose role is to learn from the black man.

Our first introduction to Virgil was him being falsely arrested for the murder of Philip Colbert, with the only evidence for his arrest being a large amount of money he carried in his wallet. False arrests were very realistic to many African Americans during the Jim Crow era, and it continues to happen even today. For example, Ed Johnson was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 1906 who was knocked unconscious with a leather strap after a witness claimed to see him walking with a leather strap despite him never owning one. These false arrests happen partly due to harmful stereotypes that African Americans are aggressive, uneducated, and poor. However, in the movie Virgil disproves all these stereotypes by being a highly paid police officer that is well-known for his work in homicide cases.

(Ed Johnson)

Another scene that showed a portrayal of race relations was when we were introduced to Endicott. Endicott is a rich white man that owns a plantation in the south, while it’s not directly mentioned this plantation still has only black people working its land and working inside of the house. This is because even after being freed some African Americans continued to work on plantations because that was all they’ve ever known. Without having an education, no land, and no money some African Americans saw no change in the 13th Amendment because they would never have the same status as a white person. Endicott also portrays the south’s old dream of returning to slavery and plantations making him a well-revered rich white man in the small town. However, Virgil shows that this dream is over and Endicott does not have any power over him after returning his slap without any repercussions from the sheriff.

Finally, I would like to point out the main relationship between Virgil Tibbs and Bill Gillespie. The sheriff starts off disliking Virgil because he assumes Virgil will meet the typical biases and stereotypes, he has for African American people. Yet Virgil immediately challenges his beliefs because he is intelligent and motivated. However, throughout the movie, we see the sheriff slowly start to change his perception of Virgil as he comes to understand him, and Virgil had similarities and he begins to see Virgil’s passion to solve the case. This is the main point of the film to show that despite having prior biases blacks and whites are more similar and interconnected than we realize, making it no reason for the country to be divided over race. If we were to work together, we could solve more problems rather than create problems by being divided.