The Barber’s Diaries is a film crying out to be made. In fact, David Henderson, a very good friend of mine in Washington DC, has been working with Charles Ellis’s descendants and with contacts in the movie industry to persuade someone to fund the production. They are also looking for a novelist or a scriptwriter to write the movie. David and the head of Outpost Pictures have produced the video at the top of this post as a story treatment to show to potential supporters of the project.
It’s an inspiring treatment – and, indeed, an inspiring story. Charles Ellis, a Black American (or Negro, as he would have been referred to at the time), remained with his family in the Midwest town of Altamont, Illinois, despite the terrible race riots, lynchings and house burnings of the 1920s and 1930s. He was the town barber and the only Black man in town. In 1933 the Great Depression forced him to close his barber’s shop and hitch-hike 1,500 miles to Arizona to continue his trade and keep his family together.
In 1927, on his 40th birthday, he resolved to bring focus, meaning and inspiration to every moment of his life, and he started to write a diary. He kept the diary faithfully for 44 years until his death in 1971 at the age of 84. In those years he wrote 2,600 pages in 6 volumes, reflecting on world events, on his family, and on his intellectual and philosophical journey. In his Altamont barber’s shop he would have heard many conversations, but he would have been silent and all but invisible to his white customers. Yet, whatever his white customers thought, he had, as his daughter Adrienne says, a life of the mind.
This is not the diary of an angry man. Nor is it the diary of a victim. Far from it. Rather, this is the diary of a quiet, reflective, spiritually strong man, who resolved to live by his faith and principles, whatever the challenges and tests he faced in life.
I am honoured to count Dr Wilma Ellis, one of his daughters, amongst my good friends. When one meets Wilma – and I am sure the same is true when one meets other descendants of Charles Ellis – one can see the fruit of Charles Ellis’s life. Wilma’s penetrating wit and intelligence maker her a spiritually uplifting person to know and converse with. Amongst her many other qualities and accomplishments, her years of service at senior levels to the Baha’i Faith, including her time as the Baha’i International Community’s representative to the UN, are, I am sure, a reflection of the spiritual and intellectual quality of her heritage.
A poor Black barber Charles Ellis may have been on the face of it, but the tree of his life has produced the most remarkable fruit.
If you know of anyone who might be willing to fund the project or a novelist or screenwriter who might be willing to write the script, please let David Henderson know. Visit his blog and click on the email me link.
Technorati Tags: Black, African American, diaries, film, racism, faith, hope
No related posts.
{ 2 comments }
The attempt to tie Altamont, Illinois, to the “terrible race riots, lynchings, and house burnings of the 1920s and 1930s” is absurd. The charge that Mr. Ellis was also “all but invisible to his white customers” is likewise at odds with the public record.
Contrary to these statements, there is much to suggest that the Ellis family was held in high regard by the people of Altamont. In fact, a volume of printed material has been uncovered which shows that the predominantly white community saw the Ellis family not as “the black family in town,” but as fellow citizens, neighbors, and colleagues.
While Mr. Ellis might have recorded isolated incidents of ugly behavior in his diaries, stereotyping Altamont as the “typical Midwestern community” of the era would be both unfortunate and inaccurate. When the film is released, it will be interesting to compare its portrayal of the village’s racial history with what is known from independent sources.
–Kurt Becker
Thank you for you comment, Kurt. You might wish to take your points up with the film makers.
Comments on this entry are closed.