cry freedom book essay

Rayd Alsayf Blog

It is just a few words on a page set … every time i write something i put it here, summary of cry freedom by john briley.

Chapter 1 and 2:

This story is about South Africa. Donald Woods is an editor of the Daily Dispatch, a journal in East London. One morning he gets news of a police raid in the black township Crossroads that lies in Cape Town. Ken Robertson, another journalist, gave him photos of the raid and he decides to print them. Robertson asked, “Do we dare use them?” he asked because the government doesn´t allow the news to print something like that especially about police beating black people. Woods had trained to be a lawyer. Because of that, he hated how the police treat black people and the brutality against them. Woods also wrote about Steve Biko and his Black Consciousness. Consequentially, the next day, Dr. Mamphela, who works with Biko in a clinic, was very angry and then she came to Woods office to spook to him about the article. After that, she arranged a meeting between them. Woods meets Steven Biko in an old church in white town. The meeting starts with woods being very uncertain and critical toured Biko. Bike drove the conversation to exchange of roles. Then the ideas and beliefs of Bike’s sank into Woods mind. As Woods saw the intelligent of Biko’s reactions and reasons, he knew that this is a start to something new.

Chapter 3 and 4:

After a while, Biko went with Wood to a clinic far away from Zanempiko, which Biko and other black doctors have built. Black doctors and black workers run the clinic, only for black people, funded poorly by black people. Woods still think that black and whites could and should work together building the country. He wants the black to be treated like witches, as a right of another human being, not as a privilege given by Whites. Black want to live their life as they want to, not like what white man like to. At the end of the chapter, Woods had seen how black people really live in South Africa and how they were traded. Being banned from the government, Biko wore like what other black workers wear and went to a black township with Wood. They took a walk through the houses and streets of the black South Africans. Biko and Wood had a conversation about the detailed frighten and scurry life of a black child. They talked about the unjust system that they suffer with. Biko side, “the black child, clever or stupid, are born into this. And, clever or stupid, you will die in it”

Chapter 5 and 6:

Biko and Wood went to eat in Tenjy Mtintso’s home. It was the first time for wood to eat with a black family. They discussed the system of the country and the history of black people and black culture. In addition, they talked about the history in which how the white people came to South Africa and how the black people got to the bad situation they are in now. After this visit, Wood’s mind has changed, because, for the first time, he saw how worse the black people of South Africa have to live. And also, he saw how strong they work together to achieve their goals. By the end of the chapter, Biko and Wood became friends. Six weeks later Woods gives Tenjy and Mapetla, black educated man and woman, a job at his newspaper. Woods action was strange for the other employees. After a while, Wood and Ken attended a soccer match for black people where Biko gave a speech to black people about the future they need to reach. His speech was very convincing and powerful, all the crowd cheered. Wood and Ken liked his speech and were convinced by Biko’s ideas for the country’s future and the black people of South Africa.

Chapter 7 and 8:

The government did not like the fact that a black leader is talking and provoking the black community against them. Therefore, the police capture Biko after the match. A black informer had told the police about the speech. In the police office, Captain De Wet held Biko in a chair and hit him. Biko was anger as he defended himself.  After that, two police officers throw Biko out. Two weeks later in a court in Pretoria, in front of the State Prosecutor and Judge Regter, Biko was the main witness of two students’ organizations who arranged a large meeting in support of the new government in Mozambique, Biko was in the defense said. Biko stood tall and proud and answered all the questions amazing the attendants during the trial period. Woods helped by printing what happened in the court. After the court event, Captain De Wet and two other police officers wear masks at night went to the church that Biko built and destroyed most of the things inside it. Donald Woods was facing a problem printing the incident in his newspaper because the only witness was a black man called Dilima. Wood was Afraid for Dilima’s life. Therefore, he did not print anything. Instead, Woods went to the Minister of Police captain Kruger and speaks with him about the incident. The minister was collaborator saying that he will fix this problem because he doesn´t tolerate such thing to happen in his town.

Chapter 9 and 10:

What Wood except from the Minister of Police was wrong because the next day two policemen come and asked around want to know the name of the witness that Woods told the Minister about. Woods refused to give them the name. Woods got angry because Kruger had betrayed him. One night, Woods heard some noise. The two police officers was harassing Woods black housekeeper Evalina by asking for her legal papers. Woods poled a gun to them and kicked them from his property. The next day, the police wanted to revenge from Wood and the blacks. So, Three men kidnaped Mapetla and after a week he was ended dead. In addition, two days later, Tenjy was arrested without any charges. The most provoking thing about it was the official explanation of the Mapetla death, which was “he hanged himself”. But, Biko and Woods did not believe that for once, so Biko demands an inquest. After all that, the judge closed the case.

Chapter 11 and 12:

Biko was panned from going out said Cape Town. So, one day he drove to speak in an meeting for black students organization. On the way, the rode was under snooping by cops. Than the car was stopped by the police. They asked about Biko’s papers without knowing that he was Biko at first. As they recognize the person is Biko the famous leader, they arrest him. In prison, they beat him and torture him. They even asked for a doctor to look at Biko. His body was covered with bruises, his forehead and eyes was seriously injured and he was hurt on other arias of his body. The doctor recommended that Biko to be put in hospital. The police did not want that, they did not want anyone to see him like that. So, they put him in the police hospital in Pretoria. The doctor’s hand was tied; he cannot say or do anything. By chapter 12, Biko died in unclear manner. After that, Woods felt sad about the lost of his friend and wanted to save his cause. So, he printed an article titled “Biko Dies In Custody”. The reason that The Minister of Police announced about Biko’s death was very week and lacked evidence.  He said that Biko starve himself to death. One day after Biko’s dead Woods, Ken, and Ntsiki, who is the wife of Biko, went to the mortuary office to see Biko’s body. Biko’s appearance was shocking, his body was tormented with. Ken and without the workers of the mortuary knowing puts out a camera and toke some photos of Biko´s body. The other day thousands of black people and friends gathered in Biko’s funeral. He was buried like how heroes would be buried.

Chapter 13 and 14:

The government wanted to close Woods newspaper, the Daily Dispatch, because of constant conflict with the government and it constant support for black people like Biko. They even terror other newspapers from writing like the Daily Dispatch. After that, Wood decided that the only way to fight is to travel to America. In addition, he sends Biko’s death photos to England and America demanding the world to investigate. However, the government stopped him at the airport. Two securities brought him to their office where Wood was told that he has become a banned citizen and have to stay in the country.in the warrant, Woods was banned for five years. Even though the police are watching and making sure that Wood is not writing the book story of Biko’s life that he wanted, Wood believed that Biko’s ideas must live on. So, after deep consideration of the fact that if he wrote this book he and his family would be in danger, he decided to escape from South Africa. Woods wife, Wendy, did not like the idea at first.But, after a tariffing attack on her children by poisoned shirts send to them by anonyms, Wendy changed her mind on the matter and decided that their safety is much important to her. In addition, she wants Biko’s ideas to see the light.

Chapter 15 and 16:

After all the attacks and threats, Wood began to think of a plan to escape the country. Carefully, Father Kani and Bruce McCullough helped him think that plan. On the New Year eve of the 31 December, Wood’s plan was in motion. He dressed as a priest. Concealed in the back seat of Wendy’s car, so that the police watching outside their home cannot know about him, she drives Woods to King Williams town. From there Wood hitchhiked and began escaping. In the way, he met Father Kani, Who drove with him to a river. As scheduled, Wood was supposed to cross the river by 1 January. However, he could not because of the wideness of the river. Therefore, he went to the edge of the river. By chapter 16, Wood met with Tami, a friend of Biko. Time gladly helped Wood and drove him to the Telle Bridge, ending their meeting with a promise to meet again in the future. Wood find himself in front of a locked gate and he had to cross the rivers, suddenly, a Land Rover stop behind him. Here, he met Moses. Moses work with the postal service, and he offered Wood a ride to Maseru. At the passport station, Wood was nerves but he tried not to show his feeling to anyone, after that, he cross the river without any problems. He even danced a little after he crossed. He drove to Lesotho where he called his family.

Chapter 17 and 18:

The road is almost finished, Wood meet Bruce through the help of Moses who still thinks that Wood is a priest. They continued to Maseru, where Wood had the chance to talk to the British acting High Commissioner. He asked helm for help to enter their country. The next morning, Wood met his family after they also escaped from the country but in a different path. The United Nation helped them to gain passports and helped them to fly by a privet plane and pilot. Even though they are happy to be unharmed during this adventure, Wood felt sad as he looked at the window. He might not see his country again. Nevertheless, he is happy that his book about Biko will be published.at the end of it all, the sound of thousands of people singing at Biko’s funeral is clear in his mind.

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Rayd alsayf, 15 thoughts on “ summary of cry freedom by john briley ”.

March 16, 2017 at 5:39 PM

Thanks for the summary. I had to read this amazing book for my English class, and this article was very helpful.

Like Liked by 1 person

June 30, 2017 at 8:11 AM

November 4, 2017 at 9:17 AM

A lot of mistakes, exapmle Biko-Bike, Zanepilo-Zanepiko…I mean I almost got E

November 26, 2017 at 6:00 PM

Its a short but ok summary (and the only one i found) It helped me but where tf are ch 19&20?! 😀

March 28, 2019 at 1:00 PM

L really like it 💕 It’s really help me 😁 Thanks ❣

May 19, 2019 at 5:57 PM

May 30, 2019 at 2:07 AM

lots of fucking mistakes

October 17, 2019 at 5:58 AM

thanks for the summary it was really helpful and complete info.

Lots of grammatical and spelling mistakes though

November 7, 2019 at 8:58 PM

The summary was great but there was some spelling mistakes which makes you a little bit confused but it was really nice

May 31, 2022 at 7:48 AM

*were. Dont complain about spelling mistakes when you cant do it better yourself.

March 29, 2020 at 10:48 PM

What a wonderful post! I spend a few minutes on reading, and I am so excited by the information I received, by the way of writing it reminded me this webpage https://leelaloudahlin.com/16-scholarships-health-medicine-majors/ . It is actually hard to find something precious on that topic. But this author seems to be a real professional because there’s a unique style in his writings. I will subscribe to his new publications, just to not skip anything. This post worths its reading.

January 12, 2022 at 7:24 PM

très bon résumé mercii

May 4, 2022 at 8:24 AM

das buch ist sehr scheusse

April 28, 2023 at 2:41 AM

The summary is really helpful for me to formulate questionnaire in my literature research on the topic Cry Freedom.

November 29, 2023 at 8:55 AM

Scheiss buch viele Schreibfehler und falsche Namen Shit book lots of spelling mistakes and wrong names

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"Cry Freedom" begins with the story of a friendship between a white liberal South African editor and an idealistic young black leader who later dies at the hands of the South African police. But the black leader is dead and buried by the movie's halfway point, and the rest of the story centers on the editor's desire to escape South Africa and publish a book. You know there is something wrong with the premise of this movie when you see that the actress who plays the editor's wife is billed above the actor who plays the black leader. This movie promises to be an honest account of the turmoil in South Africa but turns into a routine cliff-hanger about the editor's flight across the border. It's sort of a liberal yuppie version of that Disney movie where the brave East German family builds a hot-air balloon and floats to freedom. The problem with this movie is similar to the dilemma in South Africa: Whites occupy the foreground and establish the terms of the discussion, while the 80 percent non-white majority remains a shadowy, half-seen presence in the background.

Yet "Cry Freedom" is a sincere and valuable movie, and despite my fundamental reservations about it, I think it probably should be seen. Although everybody has heard about apartheid and South Africa remains a favorite subject of campus protest, few people have an accurate mental picture of what the country actually looks and feels like. It is an issue, not a place, and "Cry Freedom" helps to visualize it. The movie was mostly shot across the border in Zimbabwe, the former nation of Southern Rhodesia, which serves as an adequate stand-in. We see the manicured lawns of the whites, who seem to live in country club suburbs, and the jerry-built "townships" of the blacks, and we sense the institutional racism of a system where black maids call their employers "master" and even white liberals accept that without a blink.

The film begins with the stories of Donald Woods, editor of the East London (South Africa) Daily Dispatch, and Steve Biko, a young black leader who has founded a school and a clinic for his people and continues to hold out hope that blacks and whites can work together to change South Africa. In the more naive days of the 1960s and 1970s, his politics are seen as "black supremecy," and Woods writes sanctimonious editorials describing Biko as a black racist. Through an emissary, Biko arranges to meet Woods. Eventually the two men become friends, and Woods sees black life in South Africa at first hand, something few white South Africans have done. (Although how many white Chicagoans, for that matter, know their way around the South Side?)

Although Biko is played with quiet power by Denzel Washington , he is seen primarily through the eyes of Woods ( Kevin Kline ). There aren't many scenes in which we see Biko without Woods, and fewer still in which his friendship with Woods isn't the underlying subject of the scene. No real attempt is made to show daily life in Biko's world, although we move into the Woods home, meet his wife, children, maid and dog, and share his daily routine, there is no similar attempt to portray Biko's daily reality.

There is a reason for that. "Cry Freedom" is not about Biko. It is Woods' story from beginning to end, describing how he met Biko, how his thinking was changed by the man, how he witnessed black life at first hand (by patronizing a black speakeasy in a township and having a few drinks), and how, after he was placed under house arrest by the South Africa government, he engineered his escape from South Africa. The story has a happy ending: Woods and his family made it safely to England, where he was able to publish two books about his experience. (The bad news is that Biko was killed.)

For the first half of this movie, I was able to suspend judgment. Interesting things were happening, the performances were good and it is always absorbing to see how other people live. Most of the second half of the movie, alas, is taken up with routine clock-and-dagger stuff, including Woods' masquerade as a Catholic priest, his phony passport and his attempt to fool South African border officials. These scenes could have been recycled out of any thriller from any country in any time, right down to the ominous long shots of the men patroling the border bridge and the tense moment when the guard's eyes flick up and down from the passport photo. "Cry Freedom" is not really a story of today's South Africa, and it is not really the story of a black leader who tried to change it. Like " All the President's Men ," it's essentially the story of heroic, glamorous journalism. Remember that Kirk Douglas movie, "The Big Carnival," where the man was trapped in the cave and Douglas played the ambitious reporter who prolonged the man's imprisonment so that he could make his reputation by covering the story? I'm not saying the Woods story is a parallel. But somehow the comparison did arise in my mind.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Cry Freedom (1987)

157 minutes

Kevin Kline as Donald Woods

Penelope Wilton as Wendy Woods

Denzel Washington as Steve Biko

John Thaw as Kruger

Sophie Mgcina as Evalina

Joseph Marcell as Moses

Produced and directed by

• Richard Attenborough
• George Fenton
• Jonas Gwangwa
• Lesley Walker

Photographed by

• Ronnie Taylor

Screenplay by

• John Briley

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Cry Freedom: Richard Attenborough makes a Mandela of Steve Biko

Director: Richard Attenborough Entertainment grade: C+ History grade: C

Along with Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko was one of the most important anti-apartheid leaders in mid-20th century South Africa .

Liberal newspaper editor Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) has convinced himself that Steve Biko (Denzel Washington) is an anti-white racist. Biko has been "banned" by the regime – meaning that he cannot associate with more than one person outside his immediate family at any one time, nor travel outside a specific area. Woods goes to meet him. In the film, Woods politely objects to Biko's message, and Biko responds with a gentle sermon on the plight of black South Africans. It's considerably toned down from the authentic version recounted in Woods's memoir, in which Woods lost his temper, shouting: "I don't have to bloody well apologise for being born white!" Biko's real-life response was good-natured, but more powerful and confrontational than the one in the film. He explained that he tried to discourage hatred of any sort, but his priority was to liberate black people – not to worry about the hurt feelings of white liberals. Director Richard Attenborough, much lauded for the Gandhi he created, projects an almost identical personality on to this icon. But the Gandhian in South Africa was Mandela, not Biko.

"We don't want to be forced into your society," says Biko. "I'm going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I'm not going to be what you want me to be." But while the film lets Biko say that, it strives to present him as it wants him to be – humble, chaste, non-violent – not who he was. The real Biko spoke fierily, wittily and colloquially, peppering his speech with "hey, man". In the film, Biko talks like a slightly dull vicar from Suffolk. The real Biko's simultaneous long-term relationships with a wife and a lover, not to mention dalliances with many other women, are all but airbrushed out. "One cannot give a full account of the personality of Steve without mentioning his powerful sexuality," the real Woods wrote. The film tries, and is the poorer for it. So this movie, honouring a black hero who staked his identity on refusing to conform to white liberal expectations, redesigns him ... to conform to white liberal expectations. Oops. Alanis Morrissette, if you're reading – this is actually ironic.

Woods goes to the country garden estate of police minister Jimmy Kruger (John Thaw, who is superb). Woods asks Kruger to lay off persecuting Biko. Kruger plays nice at the time, but later secretly turns on Woods – sending the police after him instead. Meanwhile, Biko is arrested. He sustains a suspicious head injury, and dies in custody. Shamelessly, the authorities claim he did it himself, with a hunger strike. "Biko's death leaves me cold," Kruger snarls at a press conference. This line, unpleasantly enough, is accurate. The pronunciation is not. Almost everyone in the cast (except Washington) mispronounces the name Biko. The man himself said it bee-core, to rhyme with "seesaw" – not bee-koh, to rhyme with "neato".

Woods, too, is banned by the regime. He eventually flees the country. At the very end of the film, he has a flashback to the Soweto uprising where, on 16 June 1976, police opened fire on protesting school students. Recreated here, the scenes of the massacre are devastating. They are also jarring, because they're so much more dramatic than the last hour of the film, which has focused on how Woods slipped past his ban and got out of South Africa . Certainly, Woods's experience was remarkable. But when the viewer is suddenly presented with hundreds of children being shot in the streets, you've got to wonder whether "white guy escapes" is the story most in need of telling here.

A well-meaning film about the white liberal experience in South Africa – but, if you want to know about Steve Biko, look elsewhere.

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Cry, Freedom: A Story of Friendship

John briley.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

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Personal Reading Study - "Cry Freedom" by John Briley

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Film: Attenborough's 'Cry Freedom'

By Janet Maslin

• Nov. 6, 1987

THE mantle of greatness does not fall lightly onto the heroes of Sir Richard Attenborough's epic film biographies. It is placed there by a heavy hand. A great statesman, as in the director's ''Gandhi'' or his new ''Cry Freedom,'' about the murdered South African leader Stephen Biko, is apt to be bathed in beatific light as he delivers important speeches, and to be making speeches even when he talks with intimate friends. He will be surrounded by acolytes, who often nod their approval as one. When he moves the masses, thousands of people will appear on screen. And he will speak to them in clear, helpful, eminently instructive tones. Everyone else in the film will speak that way, too.

These are fine methods for delivering a civics lesson, which to some extent is what the Attenborough approach is all about. But for a film that aspires to entertain as well as educate, they are less helpful. Without forgetting how valuable it is that someone has had the courage to make serious and sincere films about important subjects, it must be noted that good intentions aren't everything. Although ''Cry Freedom'' has sweeping, scenic good looks and two fine performances to recommend it, not to mention the weight of moral decency on its side, what comes through most strongly is the ponderousness of the Attenborough style.

''Cry Freedom'' has other problems as well, problems that arise from the fact that there is no Gandhi at its center. In ''Gandhi,'' the director had a wonderfully irascible and inspiring character with which to work, a long and fascinating story to tell, and a wealth of unforgettable aphorisms with which to pepper the dialogue. Stephen Biko was a less flamboyant kind of hero, more the dedicated political theorist and less the colorful eccentric. Much less is known about him. And tragically, his story was a great deal shorter.

Biko's terrible death in 1977, at age 30, at the hands of South Africa's Security Police (who at first tried to maintain that Biko had willfully starved to death or died of self-inflicted head wounds, until an inquest determined otherwise), was in some ways the most important event of his career, since it so outraged and galvanized many of his countrymen. Yet ''Cry Freedom'' makes relatively little of this, and in fact makes relatively little of Steve Biko himself, allowing him to disappear before the film is even half over. The rest of the time, it chooses to concentrate on Donald Woods, the newspaper editor who was Biko's close friend and bravely defied South African authorities on Biko's behalf. In theory, shifting the focus makes some sense, since the Biko story is sketchy and downbeat, the Woods part more conventionally dramatic. In fact, it is most unfortunate that this film, with its potential for focusing worldwide attention on the plight of black South Africans, should concentrate its energies on a white man.

Oddly enough, there is a stronger sense of South African racism in the opening part of ''Gandhi,'' with the great statesman then a young Indian lawyer who is astounded and indignant at his treatment by a white train conductor, than there is in ''Cry Freedom.'' The new film, for reasons that are incomprehensible, soft-pedals the very issue it is nominally about. Steve Biko, played with great magnetism and given an air of true heroism by Denzel Washington (though the role is badly underdeveloped in John Briley's screenplay), talks at length about white oppression, as do his supporters. Donald Woods, played by Kevin Kline as a dashing, debonair liberal who evolves ever-so-gradually into an adventurer, talks about it, too. But talking is most of what happens here, since the Attenborough approach makes no distinction between merely stating an idea and demonstrating one through dramatic action.

Though the film contains several stupendous riot scenes (including one compressing several weeks' worth of fighting in Soweto, in 1976, into a day and ascribing the actions of black riot police to white ones), it devotes very little time to the day-to-day indignities created by apartheid. In any case, the white actors playing security police are so cartoonishly evil-looking that their actions hold little surprise.

''Cry Freedom,'' which opens today at the Ziegfeld and other theaters, is bewildering at some points and ineffectual at others, but it isn't dull. Its frankly grandiose style is transporting in its way, as is the story itself, even in this watered-down form. Opening with self-consciously journalistic footage of a 1975 police raid on the Crossroads settlement, near Cape Town, it quickly introduces Donald Woods to Steve Biko through the intervention of Dr. Ramphele (Josette Simon), a fiery woman closely associated with the banned black leader (Biko's reputation as a ladies' man is the sort of humanizing detail the film badly needs, and refuses to make use of). The two men meet and quickly become friends, although they are almost exclusively seen discussing important political questions, rarely engaging in the give-and-take that would make the friendship seem real.

Among the film's best scenes are those in which Mr. Woods attempts to intervene in his friend's behalf with James Kruger (John Thaw), the minister of police, who plays the cordial host when Mr. Woods visits him at home and then ruthlessly betrays him. Here, and in a scene when police officers try to search Biko's home and he asks them to stay outside and show him their warrant through a window, there is a sense of how mannerliness and brutality play equal roles in South Africa's unique chemistry.

The funeral of Biko has also been stirringly staged, with a huge cast of extras singing a black nationalist anthem. Mr. Washington is particularly good in the courtroom scenes that provide his character with an excellent forum. And the long segment devoted to a scheme by Mr. Woods and his wife, Wendy (Penelope Wilton), to escape the country with the manuscript of Mr. Woods's book about his friend's death, is engrossing in a more ordinary way, though it's much too long. The film's editing is so messy, and its concentration so erratic, that it neglects to mention what becomes of the family's black maid, who will surely be implicated in their getaway, and who is left behind.

''Cry Freedom'' can also be admired for Ronnie Taylor's picturesque cinematography, and for a large supporting cast including many African actors (Zakes Mokae turns up as a priest). It can be admired for its sheer scale. Most of all, it can be appreciated for what it tries to communicate about heroism, loyalty and leadership, about the horrors of apartheid, about the martyrdom of a rare man. Although these thoughts don't come through clearly enough, they can still be heard.

''Cry Freedom'' is rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''). It includes some violent episodes. A Bond of Brothers CRY FREEDOM, directed and produced by Sir Richard Attenborough; screenplay by John Briley, based on the books ''Biko'' and ''Asking for Trouble'' by Donald Woods; director of photography, Ronnie Taylor; edited by Lesley Walker; music by George Fenton and Jonas Gwangwa; production designer, Stuart Craig; released by Universal Pictures. At Ziegfeld, Avenue of the Americas and 54th Street; New York Twin, Second Avenue and 66th Street; 84th Street Six, at Broadway. Running time: 155 minutes. This film is rated PG. Stephen Biko... Denzel Washington Donald Woods... Kevin Kline Wendy Woods... Penelope Wilton Jane Woods... Kate Hardie Dr. Ramphele... Josette Simon Kruger... John Thaw Father Kani... Zakes Mokae Evalina... Sophie Mgcina

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Cry Freedom Mass Market Paperback – November 1, 1987

• Language English
• Publisher Berkley
• Publication date November 1, 1987
• Dimensions 7 x 1 x 5 inches
• ISBN-10 0425107760
• ISBN-13 978-0425107768
• See all details

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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Berkley; Media Tie In edition (November 1, 1987)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0425107760
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0425107768
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 1 x 5 inches
• #1,868,540 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

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John briley.

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Rowena Akinyemi

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• Movie quotes
• Cry Freedom

“Cry Freedom” quotes

“I just expect to be treated like you expect to be treated. Come on, what are you so afraid of? Once you try you see there's nothing to fear. We're just as weak and human as you are.” Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“You can beat or jail me or even kill me, but I am not going to be what you want me to be!” Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“You go to the city to work or shop , and you see their streets , their cars, their houses, and you begin to feel there is something not quite right about yourself. About your humanity. Something to do with your blackness because no matter how smart or dumb a white child is he is born to that world. And you, a black child , smart or dumb you are...” (continue) (continue reading) Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“People must not just give in to the hardship of life, they must find a way, even in these environments, to develop hope for themselves, hope for this country. Now I think that is what black consciousness is all about.” Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“The only history we read was made by the white man, written by the white man. Television , cars, medicines - all invented by the white man, even football. Now the way like that, it's not hard to believe there's something inferior about being born black.” Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“- Donald Woods : Do you know anyone we can trust , who has a car? - Tami: I trust me! And I have a car!” Kevin Kline - Donald Woods Tommy Buson - Tami

“- Judge Boshoff: Why do you people call yourselves black? You look more brown than black. - Steve Biko: Why do you call yourselves white? You look more pink than white.” Michael Turner - Judge Boshoff Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“It's a miracle a child survives here at all. People are so desperate for anything they'll beat a kid bloody if they thought he had five Rand. But if you do run fast enough, if you do survive , you grew up in these streets , these houses. Your parents try, but in the end, you only get the education the white man will give you.” Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“I began to think this idea of inferiority was an even bigger problem for us than what the Afrikaans were doing to us. At first a black man had to believe he had as much capacity to be a doctor, a leader , as a white man.” Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

“- State Prosecutor: Your own words demand for direct confrontation ! - Steve Biko: That's right, we demand confrontation . - State Prosecutor: Isn't that a demand for violence? - Steve Biko: Well, you and I are now in confrontation , but I see no violence.” Ian Richardson - State Prosecutor Denzel Washington - Steve Biko

• perseverance
• opportunity
• human nature
• self-esteem

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The movie has also has fear as a very strong theme there is constant police harassment of blacks and other minorities there are caged like animals in not being able to leave there boundaries with out getting in trouble. Another big theme I found was isolation in both the movie and book in the book. Stephen is the leader of a tribe and lives in a small village so he is isolated from what is going on in the larger cities. I don't think that he could have comprehended what it was like in the big city until he went there. Toward the end of the movie Cry Freedom the police isolated the reporter by not letting him be with more than one person at one time because they saw him as a threat...

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