During the San Diego Comic Con panel for Jordan Peele’s upcoming HBO series Lovecraft Country, the cast revealed that there are various influences taken from Black history, from green books to sundown towns. Lovecraft Country is slated to release on HBO on August 16th, and while plot details have been kept largely under wraps, some elements and details about the importance of its location as well as its 1950s setting have emerged as part of a larger discussion on race and 2020's social movements. Lovecraft Country is just as historical as it is horrific, with some of its more frightening aspects coming from the history of the Jim Crow era.
Lovecraft Country is adapted from the 2016 dark fantasy novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. It follows Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) as he travels to an area known as Lovecraft Country in order to search for his father, Montrose Freeman (Michael Kenneth Williams). Along the way, he asks for help from Letitia “Leti” Dandridge (Jurnee Smollett) and his uncle George Freeman (Courtney B. Vance). The trio encounters various threats ranging from the police, to segregationists, and racism as well as the “Sons Of Adam,” a secretive order of alchemists composed almost entirely of men. In their adventure, they encounter a multitude of historically-based horrors that Black people faced in Jim Crow America as well as the creatures created by H.P. Lovecraft.
While subverting the racist horror icon, Jordan Peele’s series, produced by J.J. Abrams, draws attention to an underrepresented portion of Black history. In doing so, he highlights the fact that racism did not cease when slavery was abolished. The cast drew connections from the 1950s Jim Crow era to 2020 with discussion of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality that Black people continue to face. Lovecraft Country is a deeply important series with intentions of bringing light to the truth of American history within a horrific setting with Lovecraftian creatures like Cthulhu.
Civil Rights & Black Lives Matter
The cast of Lovecraft Country brought to light the importance of recognizing Civil Rights during the Black Lives Matter movement. They drew comparisons of the fact that Black people continue to face police brutality at disproportionately higher rates than white people in the United States. By grounding this statement in the historical facts of Jim Crow Era segregation laws and Civil Rights protests, Black Lives Matter’s importance is further emphasized, as is the racism that is deeply ingrained in American soil. The Civil Rights movement was ignited in December of 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus, where Black people were legally mandated to sit. What followed were mass protests and a bus boycott across the state of Alabama.
The fight for Civil Rights continues today with the Black Lives Matter movement. Despite the gains that were made during the 1950s all the way up to the 1970s, Black people continue to face racism and the threat of death on an almost daily basis. In May 2020, the death of George Floyd sparked mass protests across the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement fights for Black people to exist without the threat of racism, murder, and unjust imprisonment perpetuated by the police, government, or general public. Since the United States is experiencing a vital moment in Black history, Jordan Peele’s Lovecraft Country comes at the perfect time to capture a similar movement in US history.
Green Books, Sundown Towns & Blood Memories
Lovecraft Country features specific symbols and elements of Black history through its inclusion of green books, sundown towns, and blood memories. A green book was known as a traveler’s guide for Black people who were navigating Jim Crow America, and wanted to ensure that their safety was somewhat secured. Victor Hugo Green inspired the first publication of the material in 1936. Green books were known to feature safe locations that welcomed Black people without discrimination. These places included restaurants, movie theaters, parks, stores, and more. In Lovecraft Country, the trio of Atticus, Letitia, and George add locations to a green book as they travel from state to state. This concept was also explored in the 2018 movie, Green Book.
Sundown towns are historically composed entirely of white residents who created their own local laws to discriminate against Black people. They were often known for their violent treatment toward any Black person who entered. This made sundown towns an important notation to list in green books that circulated the United States as places to avoid. Actress Jurnee Smollett discussed the concept of "blood memories" as part of Lovecraft Country. Blood memories refer to the intergenerational trauma that Black people experience from hundreds of years of mistreatment. From slavery to the Jim Crow Era, stories of discrimination, threats of violence, and racism have trickled down through generations. Blood memories are considered to be a constant reminder of the mistreatment of Black people in the United States. In various scenes in the trailer for Lovecraft Country, the characters experience sundown towns and this kind of intergenerational trauma.
Jim Crow Era Racism & White Fear
Jim Crow laws were enacted in order to perpetuate a system of violence towards Black people. Whether by the police or local white citizens, they enforced racial segregation that was predominately allocated to Southern history, but ran rampant across the entirety of the United States. They essentially attempted to establish a rhetoric of “separate but equal”, but being separate did not make Black people equal to white people. For instance, they were constantly threatened for inhabiting locations allocated for white use and, most infamously, using water fountains labeled based on race. At its core, white fear is defined by the discomfort white people feel towards minorities as equal or above them.
When the Civil Rights movement started, a surge of white fear swept through the nation, which prompted even more violence towards Black people. It still exists as a means of continuing racial segregation. In fact, there are a multitude of institutions that perpetuate a new version of Jim Crow segregation despite the fact that most laws from the era were overruled by the mid-1960s. Actress Abbey Lee discussed her character—a white woman she described as a "Karen"—playing into the concept of "white fear". Undoubtedly, Lovecraft Country intends to showcase the severity of these fears and how they manifested, as well as their impact on Atticus, Letitia, and George’s search for Montrose.
Lovecraft Country is not Jordan Peele’s only contribution to the horror genre that compares modern day racism to historical racism. In his horror film Get Out (2017), he brought to the light the fetishization of Black people and how some consider their bodies to be stronger or otherwise physically superior, as well one eerie scene that depicts a modern-day version of a slave auction. Peele is a deeply political director who continually uses his art to make statements on the importance of Black lives and recognizing the racist history of the United States; Lovecraft Country is no exception.