The director took inspiration from the true story of what happened when the real-life Meyers became the first black family to move into Levittown, Pennsylvania in 1957.
As the film shows, by the evening of their first day in their new home, they had 500 people on their lawn, Confederate flags on their house and a cross burning on the lawn next door.
Clooney uses contemporary news footage of the harassment of the Meyers in the film. "Sometimes you have to see the real stuff to make it really land," he said.
"When you see a film that deals with race and bigotry in the 50s or 60s, it's almost always in the South.
"We're used to people with Southern accents using this kind of language, but as someone from Kentucky, it's worth discussing that these are people from Pennsylvania and New York scapegoating minorities."
Meanwhile, the Meyers, an African-American family, have moved in next door. Nicky is thrilled to have a new friend, their son Andy, to play with but the rest of the town is not so welcoming.
Andy's mother Daisy visits the local store only to discover that the price of every item has been hiked to $20, just for her.
Soon the family are under siege in their new home, hundreds of protestors banging drums around the clock in an effort to force them out.
the 50s!!!! THE 50s!!!!
What the hell do you think we all who lived through the 50s don't know this ???
BUT what the hell good does it do to continual TEAR apart the real fabric of America?
NO OTHER race has progress society as the White Race! Almost ALL the advances have been done by the WHITE race.
SO f...king WHAT? Tear them down?
TODAY TODAY... this is what is happening! Where is the "angst" from Clooney...you and other ignorant people!!!
Jack C. Phillips, a baker in Denver, Colorado, was asked to create a wedding cake by a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, in 2012. Phillips refused, citing his Christian beliefs, but offered to serve them any other baked goods. Mullins and Craig opted to sue him instead, claiming that he had treated them in a “dehumanizing” way, and two courts ruled that Phillips should be coerced to make the wedding cake for the couple. Instead, in order to remain loyal to his conscience and his faith, Phillips stopped baking wedding cakes entirely. According to him, this has cost him 40% of his business revenue.
Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin were forced by a court in New Mexico to pay more than $6,600 in fines in 2012 after they declined to use their business, Elane Photography, to photograph a lesbian “commitment ceremony.”
The University of Toledo fired one of their staff members
when she disagreed with the idea that gay marriage was a civil rights issue:
The university fired Crystal Dixon in 2008 from her interim post as associate vice president for human resources because she wrote an op-ed piece in the Toledo Free Press arguing that the gay rights movement should not be compared to the civil rights movement because she, as a black woman, did not get to choose her minority status but, she claimed, homosexuals do.
In 2013, the state of Oregon went after the little family bakery of Aaron and Melissa Klein, when they declined to provide a wedding cake for a lesbian wedding, again citing their Christian beliefs. The state of Oregon fined them, going so far as to garnish their bank accounts and assets and taking a total of $144,000 for their refusal to violate the tenets of their faith. The bakery, which the couple worked to create for years, was shut down. Aaron Klein is currently on disability after injuring himself working as a trash collector to provide for the couple’s five children. Their family was also the target of a vicious campaign by gay activists intent on destroying their business, regardless of the cost.
A lesbian couple sued the Wildflower Inn under the state public accommodations law in 2011 after being told they could not have their wedding reception there. The owners were reportedly open to holding same-sex ceremonies as long as customers were notified that the events personally violated their Catholic faith. It wasn’t enough. The inn had to settle the case in 2012, paying a $10,000 fine and putting double that amount in a charitable trust. Also, the inn is no longer hosting weddings, although the decision reportedly was made before the settlement.
High fines to punish Christians for remaining true to their conscience are becoming increasingly normal. As LifeSiteNews reported
in 2014:
The New York State Division of Human Rights (DHR) has ruled that the Roman Catholic owners of an Albany-area farm violated the civil rights of a lesbian couple when they declined to host the couple’s same-sex “marriage” ceremony in 2012. Robert and Cynthia Gifford, who own and operate Liberty Ridge Farm in Schaghticoke, were ordered by DHR Judge Migdalia Pares and Commissioner Helen Diane Foster to pay $10,000 in fines to the state and an additional $3,000 in damages to the lesbian couple, Jennie McCarthy and Melissa Erwin for “mental pain and suffering.” Additionally, the Giffords must provide sensitivity training to their staff, and prominently display a
poster highlighting state anti-discrimination laws.
In 2014, an Indianapolis bakery owned by Randy and Trish McGath found itself the target of an online campaign launched by gay activists after they cited their Christian beliefs as the reason they would not provide a cake for a same-sex wedding. They were smeared as homophobes and hateful people, although they were willing to serve the gay community—just not participate in the celebration of a same-sex wedding.
Baronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts in Richland, Washington State, was ordered to pay over $1,000 in fines in 2015 after declining to provide floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding. She had previously sold the couple in question flowers many times, but stated simply that providing floral arrangements for a wedding would violate her Christian beliefs.
In 2015, Mennonite couple Richard and Betty Odgaard were forced to close their business in Des Moines, Iowa, after being targeted by gay activists for their refusal to host a gay ‘wedding’ in their wedding chapel. A boycott campaign replete with vicious, profane messages and a civil rights complaint resulted in the Odgaards’ having to pay out a $5,000 settlement—ultimately, they lost their livelihood.
In 2013, Crisis Magazine
reported that the anti-Christian campaigns had spread to Vermont:
No Christian persecution in the US? Try telling that to these Christians.
