@guardian_us In Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, the Smokestack twins – a gangster pair played by Michael B Jordan – return to their Mississippi Delta home town to open a juke joint and make a fast buck, only to wind up hunkered inside when danger literally comes knocking.
But the juke joint is more than a safe space from cinematic monsters.
During the late 19th and early 20th century, the juke joint was a southern social institution, the place to drink and unwind over live music. The vast majority of them were owned and operated by Black people.
They were on the same social continuum with the Black church, the south’s other cornerstone institution. The juke joint was for Saturday night, the church for Sunday morning.
Throughout its 137-minute runtime, Sinners plays with the cognitive dissonance in the symbiosis between the church and the juke joint – starting with the twins’ guitar hero cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) breaking away from his preacher father to play the blues at their new juke.
“It’s a nice journey in history,” says Kristen Warner, a Cornell University media studies professor. “You get to see Black folks be Black folks in this small town, and they all have these stories that are ellipses, that you can just pick back up on.”
Swipe to see photographs of juke joints in the 1930s and 40s, and follow the link in bio to read more.
Photos: Library of Congress archive and Warner Bros. Pictures
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