February 21st

Tuesday February 21st

As a New York City tour guide, I often bring groups up to Harlem to spend some time. (Despite the myths, Harlem is actually a safe, wonderful, thriving neighborhood, awash in culture and history.) One of the key points of my Harlem tour is when I talk about the important people who directly impacted life in Harlem. One of those people was Muslim preacher Malcolm Shabazz, more commonly known as Malcolm X. Unfortunately, the speech about Malcolm X ends with his assassination, which happened on this day 41 years ago at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem.

Malcolm X’s legacy lives on four decades later, as his Muslim followers have invested in the neighborhood and rescued dilapidated buildings from demolition, restoring them and vastly improving the Harlem area. In 1992, filmmaker Spike Lee cast Denzel Washington in what would become the definitive screen biography of the fallen leader. It is a terrific film, and I’m going to write to Mr. Lee and Mr. Washington, as well as another key cast member to let them know how much I enjoyed the film.

Spike Lee

Shelton Jackson “Spike” Lee, is a director, producer, writer, and actor noted for his many films dealing with social and political issues. He is also a distinguished documentarian and teaches film at New York University. Born in Atlanta, Lee moved with his family to Brooklyn when he was young. Spike Lee's father, Bill Lee, is a jazz bassist and responsible for the music in some of Spike's films. Spike first gained fame in the late 1980’s as the co-star and director of humorous Nike commercials starring Michael Jordan. Roger Ebert has described Spike Lee as one of the greatest filmmakers in America today. Lee's film “Do the Right Thing” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1989. His documentary “4 Little Girls” was nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award in 1997.

Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington is one of the most respected actors in the world today. A two time Academy Award winner, his films have been major box office hits. I first noticed him as one of the doctors on NBC‘s “St. Elsewhere” in the 1980’s. He then shifted to movies, winning acclaim in films like “Glory” “A Soldier’s Story” “The Pelican Brief” and “Philadelphia.” Though he should have won an Oscar for his role as Malcolm X, he eventually won a decade later for playing a corrupt cop in “Training Day.” He recently appeared on Broadway as Julius Caesar.

Delroy Lindo

Delroy Lindo is a British born American actor. The son of Jamaican immigrant parents, Lindo was born and raised in England, where at age 5 he became a stage actor. As a teenager he and his mother moved to Toronto, Canada and by the 1970s they had moved to the U.S. He spent almost two decades working in theater around the country. Spike Lee gave him a big break and cast him in a lead role as Woody Carmichael in the 1994 comedy "Crooklyn", later casting him in another big role as one of Malcolm X‘s early mentors. Among the films Lindo has starred in have been “Get Shorty“, “Clockers“, and “The Cider House Rules“. I met him after a flight from LA to New York a few years ago, and he was an extremely nice guy.