The Capri Theatre, a George Floyd Update

     The death of George Floyd at the hands of white police in Minneapolis continues to reverberate across the globe, including here in Montgomery Alabama.

     We've been reposting updates from Martin McCaffrey at The Capri Theater, and the most recent update begins with this direct statement:

"The Board of the Capri Community Film Society has always been keenly aware of it's whiteness."

 
The update continues:

"Located in a historically white section of Montgomery, the Capri Theatre was built as a segregated theatre, complete with separate entrance, ticket booth and bathrooms in the balcony, which were restricted to African-Americans.

Even that, apparently, was not enough for the neighbors in 1941, because the opening day ads read "The Balcony will not be open." I have no idea when the balcony was finally opened.

In 1983, the Capri Community Film Society assumed operation of the Capri Theatre. From its founding, efforts were made to recruit a diverse membership; which may have met with some success, but was nonetheless very much Cloverdale oriented. So much so that a Minority Membership and Promotion committee (later the Minorities Affairs Committee) was formed in November of 1983 to "study why we have so few minority members and so little minority audience." I don't know if they ever reported, but on their advice, several special screenings were held in February of 1984, for which I have no attendance records. The committee seems to have dissolved thereafter.

In early 1985 an ambitious and semi-autonomous Black Film Project, which would show one movie a month at the theatre and one off site for outreach and development. Minutes indicate a large portion of the Capri's budget was invested in this project. I do not have records on whether it was successful, but the first film was postponed by a bomb threat.

In January of 1986 the Black Film Project requested to be spun of as an autonomous project.

I was hired in November of 1985. The Capri was broke and considering going out of business. For many years, my focus was on week-to-week survival of the theatre. In the almost 35 years I have been here, the Board has always acknowledged that it needs greater minority representation. As the continuous thread through these last three and a half decades, I accept a large portion of the responsibility for not pushing the Board harder and doing better outreach myself.

As far as representation on the screen – through regular programming, special screenings and projects, co-productions, and rentals – any failure to adequately represent any minorities is clearly mine.

The Capri Community Film Society has always tried to be a welcoming environment to any who attended. We aspire to be a safe forum for divrese points of view and a venue that encourages discussion. I will have to leave it to others to decide how well we have met our aspirations.



So the question arises, What are we going to do about it?

The Board Statement above was the first step. Given the events of the past few weeks, given Montgomery's iconic position in Civil Rights history, and given the Capri's mission to be part of the whole community, we could not be silent. But that is only the least we could do.

As we maneuver our way through the pandemic, trying to be responsible and stay in business, we will work on how to make the Capri a better friend of the community. It will take time, and training and money. The pandemic has already presented us with the possibility of a whole new business model. We now have even more to consider and incorporate. A better Capri will help make a better Montgomery.

Stay Home and Stay Well

Wear A Mask - It's The Polite Thing to Do.

Martin McCaffery, Director Capri Theatre

      Martin was a director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union, so social justice is "in his blood". 
     But even that can be white-slanted. One of his most celebrated battles was with the late Mayor Emory Folmar who tried to shut the theatre down over the issue of the controversial film "The Last Temptation of Christ". 

     African Americans take their religions seriously. Go to to a single service in a black baptist church for affirmation. I have no way of knowing if African-Americans in Montgomery were more or less offended by the film, but it certainly was widely criticized by Christians in general.

     On the other hand, it could have been worse: in the novel on which the movie is based, the website TVtropes points out: 

"....the guardian angel who appears to Jesus during his last temptation (who is actually Satan in disguise) is a black Ethiopian boy. Perhaps to deflect accusations of negative portrayal of non-white people, the angel is played by a white girl in the film."

      (NOTE: A more recent Capri controversy involved the board of directors refusing to show the documentary about the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman in 2017 because of the film's treatment of the woman who prosecuted him....Leura Canary...who was on the Capri Board.)