87
Watchmen, a flurry of research and writ-
ing emerged online about the Tulsa
race massacre—when an officially sanc-
tioned white mob attacked a flourish-
ing Black Tulsa neighborhood in 1921,
killing possibly hundreds and destroy-
ing its entire business district. Show-
runner Damon Lindelof (Lost) had the
idea to tell the story after reading about
it in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for
Reparations”—and brought it to life
with a majority-Black writers’ room to
shape the narrative. The massacre is
rarely taught in schools: show writer
Christal Henry says she didn’t learnabout it until college and was deluged
with incredulous messages after the
show aired. “I got responses from white
friends, like, ‘This is crazy. I thought
you made it up,’ ” she says.
Watchmen was HBO’s most watched
new show of 2019. Since then, there
has been a heightened interest in new
developments related to the massacre,
including the discovery of a mass grave
that likely holds its victims and Human
Rights Watch’s demands for reparations
for survivors and descendants. “This is
the worst thing that’s ever happened in
our city, and you had generations grow
up here not knowing that it happened,”
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum says. “When
you have a show with that much visibil-
ity shine a light all of a sudden, it’s in-
credibly powerful.”
Now it’s the Black Panthers’ turn for
a mainstream reclamation. Negative
connotations of the group—“reduced
to leather peacoats and shotguns”—as
Judas director King puts it, still linger,
thanks to decades of fearful or sensa-
tionalist coverage. In 2016, when Be-
yoncé performed at the Super Bowl
with her dancers sporting Pantheresque
black berets, the executive director of
the National Sheriffs’ Association ac-
cused her of “inciting bad behavior.”
This reputation made it extremely
difficult for Judas and the Black Messiah
to get made. Forest Whitaker and An-
toine Fuqua tried for years to kick-start
a proj ect; so did Warner Bros. execu-
tive Niija Kuykendall. A24 and Netflix
passed on the initial pitch for Judas,
created by the Lucas Brothers writing
team. In the end, it took a massive effort
from some of the biggest names in the
business: producer Ryan Coogler, com-
ing off the $1.3 billion-grossing Black
Panther; powerhouse producer Charles
D. King, who financed half the film
himself; two newly bankable stars in
Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield;
and Kuykendall, who, as executive vice
president of film production at Warner
Bros., is one of the few Black women in
a Hollywood executive role.
The filmmakers hope that Judas deep-
ens the public perception of the Pan-
thers, calling attention to free breakfast
programs that fed thousands of children,
free legal aid, health clinics, and peace
pact negotiations between Chicagogangs. Kaluuya, who plays Hampton in
the film, is particularly excited to edu-
cate people about Hampton’s Rainbow
Coalition, which united disenfranchised
Hispanic, white and Black organizing
groups in Chicago, flying in the face of
the Panthers’ reputation as anti white. “It
showed me the importance of union and
understanding where we share core val-
ues—and putting aside what they want
us to fight over,” he says.
Crucially, the film documents FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover’s war against
the Panthers, which for years was dis-
missed as conspiracy theory. Congres-
sional investigators and others found
that Hoover’s agents spread disinforma-
tion and dissent, planted informants,
forged documents, harassed members
and even, in the case of Hampton, assas-
sinated them.
“There will be those who say the film
is pro-Panther propaganda and that
we’re making things up,” Shaka King
says. “But they won’t have any evidence
to support that.”other projects from Black creators
will burrow even deeper into Black his-
tory in the years ahead. Questlove’s Sum-
mer of Soul unearths buried footage from
the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Ge-
nius: Aretha and The United States vs. Bil-
lie Holiday re-examine two iconic and oft
misunderstood musicians. When They
See Us’ Breece is writing a biopic of the
legendary dancer Alvin Ailey, while Van
Peebles has a follow-up to his ground-
breaking 1993 Black cowboy film, Posse,
reminding the world that 1 in 4 cowboys
during the golden age of westward ex-
pansion was Black. “Kids want to be the
success they see. They want to sit tall in
the saddle,” he says.
King hopes that Hollywood, after
exploring what he terms a “Black ex-
cellence industrial complex,” will enter
into a “Black radical industrial com-
plex,” championing stories that chal-
lenge the hegemonic narratives of
America. He’s also hopeful that stories
across ethnicities that have likewise
been ignored by Hollywood will come
to light. “When it comes to Hollywood
and Latinos or Asians in the U.S., that
history is completely absent too,” the
director says. “I think that the possibili-
TV STILLS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SABRINA LANTOS—FX; ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA—NETFLIX; JOJO WHILDEN—FX ties are endless.”