Why Don't You Go Eat With Your People?

The lunchroom scene while the players were at football camp speaks a lot about the segregation that was still present within the football team.  The tables in the lunch room were segregated white or black tables.  At the beginning of the camp, there was no mixing of the races at the lunch tables.  Louis Lastik, a very large white offensive lineman, walked into the lunchroom and sat at the table with the African Americans.  When Louis sits down, Julius, his black teammate, asks him what he is doing.  Louis answers with a simple "eating lunch" in which Julius responds with "I see you eating lunch, but why you eating over here?  Why don't you go over there, and eat with your people?"  Louis answers with a line that has become iconic with the film: "Man, I don't have any people.  I'm with everybody Julius."  This is just the kind of interaction that Coach Boone wants between the teammates but Louis seems to be the only one that is making any attempt at interaction with members of the opposite race.  While Louis is sitting at the table, one of the white players at the other table says "Look at that traitor.  And Rev?  He better be praying that I block for his black behind."  It is extremely clear that there is still a lot of tension between the black and white players.  The lunchroom scene can be seen on the video at a time of around 4:20.

One of the interesting characterizations here that can tie into things that we have talked about in class is the characterization of Rev, aka Jerry Harris.  Rev is a very religious African American who plays quarterback for the team.  When Julius is giving Louis a hard time, Rev says "Come on Julius, he's just another blessed child in God's loving family."  The group then starts to hum "Amazing Grace."  From this scene, it is clear to me that the character of Jerry "Rev" Harris can be compared to a black Baptist minister of reverend of the 1960s (Hist page 445).  We are even told that he is called "Rev" because its short for reverend because he is always preaching about God.  Rev can be compared to Martin Luther King, Jr. or members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).  The group was created to try to challenge Jim Crow laws in a direct way (Hist page 445).  Rev can be said to be trying to challenge the preconceived "laws" that the football players have about not interacting with the other race.  The fact that Rev befriends Louis, a white player, goes even further to show that his character is trying to serve as peacemaker during the problems of bringing the team together.  It can also be noted that Rev does all of this in a nonviolent manner which reminds me even more of a reverend like Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1960s. 

The song "Amazing Grace" also plays an important role in this scene as well as the movie as a whole.  For this scene, the African American players hum the song to try to bring Julius to not being so against interaction with Louis, and the white players in general.  The song is always seen as an uplifting song that is able to rise people up and fight against the problems that they are facing.  Because African Americans were so mistreated throughout this time period, songs like "Amazing Grace" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" were songs that were able to uplift African Americans from the struggles that they were facing.  Songs like these were sung also to get people's minds off of the struggles that they were facing.  The religious tone of the song also attributes to the time period because African Americans were very involved with they churches and cited their faith as something that was very important to them.