But what DuVernay puts front and center is the terror that comes with asking people to join you in that darkness, to be willing to die suddenly and brutally. Not only is the audience haunted by its knowledge that King <em>will</em> die, we must also come to terms with the fact that violence was King's only real card, in the sense that it would take the spectacle of physical brutality to motivate recognition of the daily subjugation of black people. And, for that to work, people had to be willing to risk their lives, and King's team had to be willing to ask them to do so and watch them as they suffered and died. ⇢ Read more