Sounder (1972) Cicely Tyson Eng

1933, Lansdowne Parish, Louisiana. The Morgans - mother and father Rebecca and Nathan Lee, and their three children David Lee, Josie Mae and Earl - are a loving, black, poor sharecropping family, generally well liked in their community. Nathan Lee realizes that especially during the lean non-cropping times, his family relies on him to put food on the table in the form of what, with the help of the family's faithful hound Sounder, he is able to hunt generally in terms of small game. Nathan's ability to provide that food has been difficult of late. When Nathan is caught, charged, convicted and sentenced to one year hard labor for stealing food for his family, David Lee is forced to assume the male head of the family responsibility, including anything having to do with his father, all without Sounder who has not returned after being injured. Through it all, David Lee is torn between his responsibility to the family versus his thirst for a formal education especially when he discovers there is much about black American history he doesn't know. Being pulled in both directions becomes even more pointed with the return home of Nathan Lee.