10 Things I Learned: Do the Right Thing
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Spike Lee was inspired to write Do the Right Thing by what is now known as the Howard Beach incident. On December 20, 1986, a mob of twelve angry white men chased down and beat three black men who had just left a pizzeria in the predominantly Italian-American community. During the pursuit, the mob forced one of their victims, Michael Griffith, to run onto the Belt Parkway, where he was hit by a car and killed. In the behind-the-scenes footage of Do the Right Thing on this edition, Lee recalls the protest led by Reverend Al Sharpton and the call for all African-Americans to boycott white-owned pizzerias, an act that inspired the scene in which Buggin Out instigates a boycott of Sal’s.
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