The Long Walk Home Parent Guide

On a memorable afternoon in 1965, Rosa Parks decides she’s tired of standing in the bus so white passengers can sit and refuses to give up her seat. Her arrest for violating the segregation bylaws of Montgomery, Alabama prompts a bus boycott: Black churches in the area encourage their members to stay off the city’s buses, using economic pressure to force the city transportation department to eliminate its racist policies.

Rosa Parks’ defiance quickly ripples outwards into the lives of two very different women. Odessa Carter (Whoopi Goldberg) works as a maid during the day but lives in a Black neighborhood with her husband, teenage daughter, and two sons. Odessa joins the boycott, determined to eliminate the Jim Crow segregation laws so her children will have greater opportunities. That decision has ramifications for Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek), Odessa’s employer. Miriam enjoys an affluent suburban lifestyle, supported by two maids, who she treats with careless good nature.

Both women find themselves tested by the boycott. For Odessa, it means blisters and bleeding feet. For Miriam, it forces a reassessment of how she perceives the Black people who surround her. Initially, her own convenience is at the fore, and she starts picking up Odessa in the morning to make sure she arrives on time. But as Miriam is confronted by the racism of her relatives and neighbors, she is forced to acknowledge the humanity of her maids and the justice of their aspirations. Gradually, Miriam is drawn further and further into a world of social activism, to her own surprise and the horror of her conformist husband (Dwight Schultz).

The Long Walk Home is an outstanding film about the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. It manages to avoid an “us” versus “them” dichotomy: although there are some truly horrible white people and disturbing acts of racial violence, Miriam’s character is a reminder that good and evil can’t be predetermined by race and that everyone is capable of growth and personal evolution. The story also demonstrates the incredible power of united communities (particularly Black churches) in making change and it delivers a strong message about self-respect, dignity, and racial equality.

Best of all, this film is suitable for family and classroom viewing. The PG rating is somewhat optimistic: it fits more comfortably in a PG-13 range. There are over four dozen racial epithets in the movie, which are historically accurate but still manage to shock and offend. Episodes of racial violence, including the beating of a child and a scene where a mob threatens a group of black women, are also distressing. Director Richard Pearce walks a fine line here: he ensures that there is enough peril to give a sense of history without making the movie too brutal for family audiences. This movie is definitely suitable for teens and mature tweens and we recommend it for this age group.

It can be difficult to find movies that help young people engage with the past but The Long Walk Home, uses finely drawn characters to tell a highly relatable personal story. It gives viewers of any age the chance to learn empathy; to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.