Standing together to stop racism, "A Gathering of Old Men" makes a strong statement. When a bigoted white Louisiana tenant farmer is killed, black sharecropper Louis Gossett, Jr., is the most likely suspect. Plantation manager Holly Hunter, fearing a lynching, rallies Gossett's friends to form a united front to ward off any vigilantes. Sheriff Richard Widmark arrives to arrest Gossett, whereupon his old friends all confess to the killing. Even threats of violent retaliation cannot dissuade these elderly black men from displaying their pride to the white powers-that-be in this compelling 1987 story based on the powerful novel by Ernest J. Gaines.
Standing together to stop racism, "A Gathering of Old Men" makes a strong statement. When a bigoted white Louisiana tenant farmer is killed, black sharecropper Louis Gossett, Jr., is the most likely suspect. Plantation manager Holly Hunter, fearing a lynching, rallies Gossett's friends to form a united front to ward off any vigilantes. Sheriff Richard Widmark arrives to arrest Gossett, whereupon his old friends all confess to the killing. Even threats of violent retaliation cannot dissuade these elderly black men from displaying their pride to the white powers-that-be in this compelling 1987 story based on the powerful novel by Ernest J. Gaines.
