as “one of the greatest in the history of the nation.” This boycott can be seen as both a beginning and an end. The 1955-56 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, which is the subject of The Long Walk Home, was described by Dr. History Flash: Understanding The Long Walk Home In cross-cultural terms, this means that a Chinese person, for example, can never really know what it feels like to be Mexican, but if the Chinese person studies Spanish, travels to Mexico, and has Mexican friends, she can begin to imagine a situation from the “Mexican” point of view.Īs you view or think back on the film The Long Walk Home, think of a scene in which a character demonstrates empathy. Thus empathy requires that you try to look through the other’s eyes rather than through your own. So an adult who sees a child lost in a grocery store can feel sympathy knowing that anyone who is lost is likely to feel confused and upset, but empathy only if the adult is able to imagine in particular what a lost child might be feeling.Īn outgoing social butterfly can empathize with a shy woman sitting by herself at a party if the outgoing person can imagine what it might feel like to be shy.
My knowledge can help me try to imagine what another person is feeling in a given situation, which is not necessarily what I would be feeling in the same situation. To empathize with another person, I must recognize and remember that other people are different from myself, and I need to have some knowledge of what these differences are. The ability to empathize requires imagination, knowledge, and compassion. The Long Walk Home gives us the chance to focus on one of the most important cross-cultural skills: empathy. Mary Catherine “Boo Boo” younger daughter and narrator
Miriam Thompson white, Southern wife and mother in household employing Odessa Odessa Cotter (“Dessie”) African American boycotter and maid in the Thompson home This section on The Long Walk Home is used with permission of Intercultural Press, Yarmouth, ME, and adapted from Seeing the Big Picture: Exploring American Cultures on Film, by Ellen Summerfield and Sandra Lee, 2001. Read About Empathy, Cross-Cultural Skill #1