LCCR Honors Civil Rights Leaders in Communications: 'Crash'
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 5/1/2006
Lionsgate's extraordinary film "Crash," co-written and directed by Paul Haggis, will be honored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) at this year's Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner on May 4, 2006 in Washington, D.C.In addition to the civil rights honor, the film has won three Academy Awards including, Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture of the Year.
LCCR chose to honor "Crash" because of its powerful, gut-wrenching, examination of race, gender, and class in America.
"When I saw 'Crash' I was deeply moved not just by the powerful portrayal of the racial, ethnic, and class tensions in our society, but because the characters and situations felt so real," said Wade Henderson, LCCR executive director, when the awards were announced. "At that moment I said to myself, 'LCCR needs to recognize this unprecedented film to further its underlying message - the need for greater understanding and respect.'"
The film depicts multi-racial Los Angeles residents who "crash" into one another over a 36-hour period. The "crashes" show how each character's prejudice keeps them from really connecting to the people around them.
Haggis wrote the film after he and his wife were carjacked in the early 1990s and he couldn't get the incident out of his mind. "I wanted to see how strangers affect other strangers, how one person affects another, without even knowing they even met them or touched them and I wanted to see how those things circled around," says Haggis in the behind-the-scenes feature on the "Crash" DVD.
The film features Don Cheadle (who was one of the film's producers), Terrence Howard, Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Larenz Tate, Ryan Phillippe, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Peńa, hip-hop star Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Brendan Fraser.
The Civil Rights Award honors the legacy of former United States vice president, senator, and civil rights pioneer Hubert H. Humphrey, whose years of public service, leadership, and dedication to equal opportunity changed the face of America.
Awardees are selected based on their distinguished contributions to the advancement of civil and human rights. Previous recipients include Senator Edward Kennedy; Representative John Lewis; civil rights leader Julian Bond; disability rights advocate Justin Dart; and actor-activist Danny Glover, among others.
