Take a Giant Step

Take a Giant Step (1959) is a coming-of-age drama film, directed by Philip Leacock about a black teenager living in a predominantly white environment and having trouble coping as he reaches an age at which the realities of racism are beginning to affect his life more directly and pointedly than they had in his childhood. Adapted from the Broadway play by Louis S. Peterson, the film stars Johnny Nash, who would ultimately become more well known for his singing career, including the hit song "I Can See Clearly Now", as the lead character, Spencer "Spence" Scott. Co-stars included Ruby Dee as the Scott family's housekeeper, Estelle Hemsley as Grandma Martin (Hemsley was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress), and Beah Richards as Spence's mother. The movie's executive producer was Burt Lancaster through his Hecht-Hill-Lancaster production company.

Spencer "Spence" Scott (Johnny Nash) is a 17-year-old black high school senior who has lived his entire life in a middle-class white neighborhood of an unnamed city in the northern United States. Having been raised with a sense of self-respect, he is starting to become frustrated by the effects of racism. When his history teacher speaks ill of the intellect of black slaves during the American Civil War, he objects, and when the teacher dismisses the objection, he storms angrily out of the classroom and slips to into the bathroom to calm down by smoking a cigar. He is discovered there and is suspended from school. At the same time, his white friends are beginning to exclude him from their activities because they want to include girls, and none of the girls' parents approve of their daughters socializing in circles that include a black boy.

Spence confides in "Gram" (Estelle Hemsley), his ailing but wise grandmother, but he cannot face the prospect of telling his parents (Frederick O'Neal, Beah Richards) what has happened, so he decides to leave home, catching a bus into a black neighborhood. His time on his own is short-lived, however, as he is socially unprepared for an adult world. Although he is intelligent and well-read, he finds that his academic knowledge doesn't carry him far, as he approaches an attractive older woman in a bar, presenting to her a very logical case as to why he'd be a good boyfriend, and assuring her that he'd be willing to marry if they were to fall in love. He is disillusioned to discover that the woman is unhappily married and wants only to find a man in the bar who has some money and a nice car, so that she can have a one-night fling with him to temporarily escape from her troubles.