When Oscar Grant, an unarmed, black 22-year-old, was fatally shot on New Year’s Day 2009 by a white Oakland, Calif., transit police officer, calls for justice swept throughout the country. Angie Thomas felt them all the way in Jackson, Miss.
“In my anger and frustration, I wrote a short story about a boy named Khalil who was a lot like Oscar and a girl named Starr who was a lot like me,” she said.
Over the next five years — with the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Sandra Bland in similar circumstances — Thomas expanded that short story into what became her debut novel, “The Hate U Give,” which has now been adapted into a film.
“I decided to turn this story into a novel because so many kids in my neighborhood and church, every time somebody called Trayvon Martin a ‘thug,’ it felt like they were calling them thugs,” she said. “I wanted to write a book for them that says, ‘I see you. I understand you. I love you.’ ”
Hitting theaters Oct. 19, the film follows Starr (Amandla Stenberg), a 16-year-old black girl who witnesses the fatal police shooting of her best friend, Khalil (Algee Smith, “Detroit”). His death catapults her into the spotlight of the Black Lives Matter movement in her town as she finds herself and her voice.
The picture, directed by George Tillman Jr., also stars Russell Hornsby, Regina Hall, Issa Rae and Common.
Tillman came across Thomas’ unpublished manuscript while he was on the set of “Luke Cage.” “I read 30 pages and I was hooked,” he said. “The dialogue and language, it felt like us, coming from an authentic place.”
After hearing that others were working to get the manuscript and that Stenberg was circling the lead role, he was on the phone with Thomas by early December courting the rights to make the adaptation. The pair connected on what the film should look like and what from the book had to be maintained in the film version. They wanted to capture the sentiment of what it’s like to live as black people in a country where white supremacy and institutionalized racism marginalizes and oppresses them.
“It was the kind of movie I’ve been dying to tell: authentic, culturally relevant, one that changes lives and is entertaining,” he said.
Tillman ensured that Thomas was involved throughout every stage of production, from Audrey Wells’ script to casting, to on-set performances.
While filming, Tillman said the spirits of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, black men killed by police within a day of each other, wafted through the set. As did the energies of the demonstrators in Ferguson, Mo., and the unrest in Charlottesville, Va. The hoodie Starr wears in the film is an homage to Martin.
