Ryan Coogler’s smash hit horror focuses on the opening of a juke joint, a one-time mainstay in Black southern culture
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 vampires; for Black people during segregation, it was an escape from the horrors of the so-called “separate-but-equal” US economy. “The juke joint represents, as the film suggests, this multifaceted connection to the foundation of Black experience,” says William Ferris, a University of North Carolina history professor who has made documenting blues music and southern culture his life’s work. “It’s a safe haven from racial violence.”
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. In fact the word juke (also spelled jook) is said to derive from Gullah, a creole language that has been spoken by Black people on the south-eastern coast for generations; it means to dance, act disorderly or engage in rowdy behavior – fun that juke joints were known for.
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