Tibbs, along with the local police commissioner, investigates the murder and eventually finds the killer. Not without risk to his own life: Tibbs experiences a lot of racism in the town and is even nearly lynched twice by the locals who are not happy with a Black man in a position of authority.
This is the plot for Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (US 1967), which stars Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs. Looking at the history of the American state, the events in the film are not strange. Mississippi was and remains one of the most segregated states and the state that has witnessed the greatest number of lynchings. It is also the state that only ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution for the abolition of slavery - following an attempt in 1995 - in 2013.
In the Heat of the Night: The Slap that Changed the History of Film
The Black Archives’ Isabelle Britto places ‘the slap heard around the world’ from In the Heat of the Night in a historical context. Why did this slap make such an impression in 1967, and what made Sidney Poitier such a special actor?
By Isabelle Britto, The Black Archives20 July 2022
When a white man is murdered in a Mississippi town in 1967, it is quickly assumed that the murder was committed by a Black man who happens to be at the town's train station. The man, Virgil Tibbs, turns out to be a successful Philadelphia homicide detective.
There is one scene in the film that stands out especially: after being slapped by a plantation owner who isn't happy about being interrogated by a Black man, Tibbs returns the slap. This slap is also called the ‘slap heard round the world’. But why was this slap so revolutionary?
The history of the Black American presence in film is complex. Although Black characters were already present in early films, they were often not played by Black actors. In fact, the characters were usually stereotypical caricatures of Black people, played by white actors to make fun of Black people.
A good example of this is the film The Birth of a Nation (1915), in which Black people were portrayed as lazy, unintelligent and dangerous, especially toward white women. The film sparked a revival of the highly racist and dangerous hate group Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
With exceptions, the image of Black inferiority in film remained dominant. This was not surprising, as many of these films were built on a long tradition of minstrel shows. Minstrel shows were theatre plays in which white actors in blackface performed caricatures of (enslaved) Black people in a jolly manner. Black people were often portrayed as simple, lazy, happy, or aggressive.
Notably, the genre of minstrel shows, which first emerged in the 1830s, was the most popular form of entertainment in the United States for a long time: among young and old, among all social classes, as well as among presidents such as Abraham Lincoln. Minstrel shows were even shown during diplomatic meetings with countries such as Japan.
The first Black American to win an Academy Award was Hattie McDaniel in 1939 for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. This mammy figure was also a remnant of the minstrel show and the slavery that preceded it. The mammy caricature was a maternal and often ‘simple’, overweight Black woman who looked after the children of the white plantation owners. During the Oscars, McDaniel was not allowed to sit at the table with the rest of the actors but had to dine at a segregated table at the side of the room.
Considering this context, how special is it then that Sidney Poitier won an Oscar as early as 1963 for his role in Lilies of the Field in which he plays the non-stereotypical role of a handyman who builds a church for a group of nuns.
Poitier himself was born in Miami in 1927, the son of two farmers from the Bahamas. After growing up in the Bahamas, Poitier returned to America at the age of 15, and, after a short stint in the military, eventually ended up at the American Negro Theater. Poitier was only hired at the theatre on his second attempt because he was rejected the first time due to his strong accent. Still, he managed to get rid of his accent, and he started his very illustrious career in Broadway and film.
Poitier was known for consciously refusing stereotypical roles, and in doing so, not becoming part of the long tradition of stereotyping Black people in theatre and film.
“The kind of negro played on the screen was always negative, buffoons, clowns, shuffling butlers, really misfits. This was the background when I came along 20 years ago and I chose not to be a party to the stereotyping. I want people to feel when they leave the theatre that life and human beings are worthwhile. That is my only philosophy about the pictures I do.”
Sidney Poitier, 1967
Nevertheless, Poitier's work was and has been criticized because his characters were often portrayed through a ’white lens’. This means that his characters were almost all non-threatening, gentle, extremely rational, and not very sexual (often with no romantic counterpart). All in all, easily digestible and acceptable for the progressive white public.
However, this did not mean that the moderate characters he played were a reflection of his own life. Poitier himself was actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Together with actor Harry Belafonte, Poitier even tried to deliver $70,000 to activists in Mississippi in 1964 but had to flee for their lives when they were chased by members of the Ku Klux Klan who fired weapons at the actors.
In this context, it is not surprising then, that after reading the script of In the Heat of the Night, Poitier insisted that a slap returned to the white plantation owner would be written in. Poitier himself said that he would only do the part if he could ‘instinctively’ react and that he would not have endured such a slap in his own life.
‘The slap heard around the world’ remains one of the most iconic moments in Poitier's long career as well as in Hollywood history in general. Poitier was one of the pioneers of true representation of Blackness in film, and his legacy will long outlive him.
Films, talks & events
Catch In the Heat of the Night, Lilies of the Field, Buck and the Preacher (with Poitier and Harry Belafonte) and more this summer in Eye Filmmuseum during our Sidney Poitier & Denzel Washington film programme.
The Black Archives
Visit Facing Blackness at The Black Archives for more information about the history of racist caricatures in the Dutch context as well as the resistance against them, until the end of this year.