Booker Wright was a Black waiter at Lusco’s, a white-owned restaurant in Greenwood, Mississippi. He did his job without a fuss, but when documentary filmmaker Frank De Felitta approached him, he knew it was his time to be heard.
Booker Wright was featured in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait, and he quickly gained national attention for his heartfelt and honest comments. De Felitta had warned Wright ahead of time that Wright’s words would also make him a target.
Booker bared his soul, giving white America an exclusive look at the daily humiliation and degradation he suffered as a Black waiter. White patrons called him racist slurs, denied him tips, and then expected him to smile through it all. But he put up with it in the hope that one day, his children would have a better life. But white Americans weren’t touched by his struggle; they were enraged that he talked about it.
The whitelash against Booker Wright’s comments forced him to leave Lusco’s, where he had worked for over 25 years. Then the restaurant he started, Booker’s Place, was targeted because he chose to speak his truth.
People like Booker Wright paid the price for us to speak freely and openly about our struggles. Because of them, we can be stronger and more emboldened in our Blackness in an anti-Black world.