Rest in Peace Sidney Poitier

Having grown up in a working class neighborhood full of white supremacist racist folks, I wanted our children to have a different experience with role models who would teach them to be tolerant and kind.

Film was one of the ways. So In addition to others, I had them watch several of his films, including The Defiant Ones, A Raisin in the Sun, Lillies of the Field, To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

If you had to choose one, what film of Poitier’s would you guys show to a teen or twenty-something not familiar with his work so that they might appreciate him? While several are amazing seminal works from my perspective, I also wonder how well modern youth might relate to them.

To Sir With Love is probably the first Poitier I connected with when I saw it by chance while I was in high school. Obviously the school setting helps.

I mean, Sneakers is a hell of a lot of fun and super-easy to get into…but it probably isn’t the groundbreaking and iconic Poitier role you’re going for here, either.

In the Heat of the Night still feels very topical. It’d be my first choice but I say that acknowledging full bias that it is one of my favorite films of that era, too.

So this was weird:

Of course, all yesterday I saw references to Sydney Poitier passing away.

And last night, in the mystery novel I was reading, appeared a character named Sydney Poitier Reynolds…

I will second triggercut’s rec of In the Heat of the Night as a young person’s first intro to Poitier, though it may require a brief explanation of the political context (or alas maybe not, given the way things have going the last few years.)