'In the Heat of the Night' Essay

In the film ‘In the Heat of the Night,’ it was portrayed as a civil rights parable and as a crime drama. The film was released in 1967 three years after the Civil Rights Act was legislated; therefore, it depicted the racial tension in the 1960s in the town of Sparta, Mississippi. Between the film, ‘In the Heat of the Night,’ and class lectures over the 1960s there was a great correlation over the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and the Civil Rights movement, including Martin Luther King. The relationship between the film and the SNCC was displayed pretty similarly through a scene in the film. The scene where Tibbs and Gillespie accompany Sam Wood to the diner, counterman Ralph refuses to serve Detective Tibbs because he is black. Despite the fact that Ralph ends up being the murderer of Colbert, that scene exemplified the idea of the SNCC. Four African American college students in North Carolina walked up to local diner and sat down waiting to be served; however, the white staff refused to serve them. The four African American students experienced the same type of betrayal and disrespect as Detective Tibbs did. If it weren’t for the SNCC there wouldn’t have been active freedom rides and Sit-ins. In 1963, over 200,000 people of all races participated in march where Martin Luther King told his “I Have a Dream” speech (Civil Rights Movement Lecture). This movement gave people among all races hope that equality would be enforced. For example, Detective Tibbs at the beginning of the film was approached by Gillespie, where Gillespie jumped to the conclusion that since he was black and had a lot of money on him that Tibbs was the culprit for the crime. It turned out that black men could actually be successful as well; consequently, finding out that Tibbs is a respected Philadelphia homicide detective. Not only did the SNCC correlate with Tibbs disrespect as a black man, but the film targeted the interracial emphasis of the Southern Civil Rights