Rev. Peter Johnson Oral History

Although Peter Johnson has been a local civil rights activist and community leader for more than half a century, what first brought him to Dallas was the 1970 documentary film, King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis. Directed by the late Sidney Lumet, best known for Twelve Angry Men (1957), Long Day's Journey into Night (1962) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), this three hour and five minute black-and-white documentary consisted largely of newsreel footage narrated by a host of celebrities, including Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman and Charlton Heston.  

The film was shown in movie theaters as a special "one time only" event on March 24, 1970. Considering the ongoing racial tensions in the country, it proved difficult to schedule individual screenings across the nation. As the film's promoter in the southwest, stationed in Dallas, Johnson had a particularly difficult time, as detailed in this interview. Ultimately, the film was nominated for an Academy Award (for Best Documentary, Feature) and was selected for preservation by the Librarian of Congress for the National Film Registry in 1999. It remained, however, unreleased on home video until 2012 when Kino Lorber Inc. prepared an extensive restoration in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and released the documentary on DVD and Blu-Ray. The celebrated documentary has subsequently become widely available on various streaming platforms. - Stephen Fagin, Curator