Sinners' 11 Biggest Historical Takeaways

 This post includes spoilers.

If you’re familiar with black-American history or a regular viewer of Intelexual Media content, your viewing of Ryan Coogler's Sinners was rich with context and meaning. I loved watching this movie so much that I wanted to write about it!  Here's what I caught and remembered from one viewing. Outside of juke joints, racial passing, and the Ku Klux Klan, did you catch these eleven historical connections? I wanted to do a video, but due to all of the work I've got right now (that I think you guys will be very pleased with!), I settled for a patreon post.

1. Smoke mentions that after the twins fled home, he wanted to go to Mound Bayou instead of Chicago

Mound Bayou is a town founded by former enslaved people in 1887 led by Isaiah Montgomery. The town was prosperous, and in 1912, described Booker T Washington, [it’s]  a “place where a Negro may get inspiration by seeing what other members of his race have accomplished...[and] where he has an opportunity to learn some of the fundamental duties and responsibilities of social and civic life.” In 1932, when Smoke tells Sammie that he needs to go to Mound Bayou and stay away from negativity, Mound Bayou was in economic decline from agricultural decline and disenfranchisement. Three years after the events of Sinners, a portion of the Mound Bayou business district, including the first public library for black Mississippians, was destroyed by fire. But this is where Smoke believed the temptations of evil, racism, and crime won’t reach Sammie— but also, the temptations of race mixing and false promises of equality. Recall in the early part of the film that Sammie says he heard there’s no Jim Crow up in Chicago, making Smoke say “Chicago aint nothing but Mississippi with tall buildings.”

2. Annie The Root Worker

Annie, played by Wunmi Mosaku

I knew Annie was a Hoodoo conjurer as soon as she was on screen. When the children visit Annie’s shack for herbs, they mention needing High John the Conqueror, a common ingredient for mojo bags. I loved when Smoke revealed the mojo bag around his neck. We can infer that Annie is possibly from New Orleans or Louisiana, as later someone yells at her along the lines to 'keep that Louisiana shit to herself'.  Her origin would account for her knowledge of vampires, who were a routine fixture of Louisiana lore since the 16th century. Before the battle (that the characters were only able to gear up for because of Annie’s information about garlic, silver, and wooden stakes), Annie throws and reads “bones”, and I can’t recall if I saw actual bones but there were safety pins, buttons, etc. She did this to predict the outcome of the battle, tragically knowing before Smoke that they were both doomed to die. Annie, played by Wunmi Mosaku, was my favorite character and I really appreciated her being a love interest over somebody light and skinny. Her knowledge and quick tongue made her a compelling. My second favorite character was Sammie. Miles Caton killed that role, by the way.

3. Irish Beer and Italian Wine

Mob Boss Al Capone was sent to prison the year the movie was set in.

One of Stack and Smoke’s customers, a laborer from a local plantation, rejects the fancy Irish Beer and Italian Wine for simple corn liquor, which he pays for with a bit of cash but mostly tokens. During sharecropping in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, laborers were often paid with plantation tokens designed to be used at the plantation store to keep workers dependent on their employers. Annie deduced from the Irish beer and Italian wine the twins were trying to hawk that they had been involved in organized crime up in Chicago. The twins mysteriously appeared back in Mississippi in 1932, the same year that Al Capone was sent to federal prison and the Chicago Outfit, a branch of the Italian mafia, came under new leadership. The year previously, a new mayor named Anton Cermack waged a war against vice and black gambling operations. Wrote Robert Lombardo in The Black Mafia: African American Organized Crime in Chicago 1890-1960, “On taking office, [Cermack] fired 2,260 temporary city employees many of who were black. Cermak also instructed the city police force to attack black controlled gambling and policy operations. Cermak recognized that the black gambling overlords were the source of the money that greased the South Side Republican machine.”

4. Blues Music as Demonic

Preacher boy’s father Jeddediah’s dislike of Blues Music is rooted in the real history of the genre, which was birthed in the Mississippi Delta.  Religious black people believed it was raunchy and sinful, white racists loved the sound but wanted white singers, and legends swirled about the most talented musicians selling their souls to the devil for their abilities. As the legend goes, blues originators Tommy Johnson and in other legends Robert LeRoy Johnson, took their guitars to a crossroad and were met by the devil, who played songs and gave them the ability to play.

Old Sammy is played by George “Buddy” Guy, an 88-year-old blues musician from Louisiana who was raised in a sharecropping family. He picked cotton for $2.50 a pound, and moved to Chicago at 21 in 1957, with dreams of being a guitar player.  and is now a homeowner and long-time performer. Fun fact: his daughter is Rasawnna Guy, aka Shawn from Ludacris’s song What’s Your Fantasy!

5. Remmick is originally Irish and mentions his people being colonized by the Anglo-Normans

Jack O' Connell plays Remmick

The Celtic people of Ireland had their own religion, and when Anglo-Normans invaded in the late 12th century and began conquering the lands, Christianity was one of their gifts. The oppression and eventual assimilation of Irish people is meant to be pondered, especially when the trio of white vampires sings their Irish folk songs. Said Coogler in an interview with IndieWire, “It was very important that our master vampire [in] this movie was unique as the situation… “It was important to me that he was old, but also that he came from a time that pre-existed these racial definitions that existed in this place that he showed up in.” With this intention by Coogler, it may make the viewer wonder if Remmick was being sincere in his sales pitch to unite the races and kill the Klan. Remmick offers freedom from fear, racism, and death— three things certainly on the menu for any black person in 1930s Mississippi. It’s alluring for a moment, and reminiscent of white leftists pressuring black people to drop everything they know about white supremacy to join forces and defeat evil together— as one. It sounds just as ludicrous as the three white vampires do when they attempt to charm their way inside the juke, an all-black space deliberately erected to protect its inhabitants from the prying eyes and plans of white people. But as Remmick points out, this haven that Smoke and Stack created is in danger. I think it’s pretty deliberate that the Klan’s Grand Wizard had the last name Hogwood, which is an Anglo-Saxon name.

Remember when Mary was hurt about Annie dying and not being turned into a vampire? This showed as Annie explained, the vampires retained their soul and personalities and were trapped inside of their bodies. And because Smoke managed to bind Stack to a promise to not turn their cousin Sammie, we can also deduce that vampires were not without honor. They still retained a bit of their humanity— but a more ruthless version. Could Remmick have been sincere? I think with a second or third re-watch this might be more clear— or maybe Mr. Coogler intended to be ambiguous. As a last note, because Remmick was by himself at the beginning of the film when being pursued by Chocktaw Indians, they had either not fallen for his pitch or at the very least, stopped him from turning and destroying their community. Had they recognized the danger of this white man immediately? Or do you think they may have been initially charmed or persuaded by Remmick to be let in like Lola and Bert? What do y’all think?

When Sammie says the Lord's Prayer for comfort and control, Remmick comes behind him and finishes the prayer before launching into a speech about his disdain for the religion, essentially reminding him that they are empty words from colonizers. Sammie takes this moment to save his life and release the souls of his friends, family, and lover when they burst into flames in the sun.

6. Sammie Preacher Boy severed ties with the religious upbringing he had been raised in despite the evils of the world

I’m not gonna lie, I thought for one moment that Sammie was going to drop the remaining remnant of his guitar and crumple to his knees begging for the lord’s mercy. I cheered and almost cried when he drove away from his father’s church. It would have been easy for the lesson to be “worship God, avoid sin”, but instead, Sammie came to his own religious conclusions and broke ties with the church/religion that had not just been handed to his ancestors, but to the Irish-Vampire Remmick. He decided that the night of trauma was not going to be the end of his life and love for music. He also broke ties with his father's implied abuse in a much different way than Smoke and Stack (who killed the abusive SOB), by leaving home and severing any familial obligations.

7. Oral sex in the black community

As we’ve discussed in this video, oral sex in the black community was nowhere near as common in the past as it is today— especially in 1930s Mississippi. However, by the year that the film begins, jazz records like Maggie Smith’s 1925 Anybody Here Want To Try My Cabbage and Bessie Smith’s 1928 song Empty Bed Blues showed that oral sex was a topic of conversation.

8. Grace & Bo- Chinese shopkeepers in Mississippi

"Behind the Counter. " Courtesy Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum.

When Chinese immigrants migrated to the Mississippi Delta in the 1870s through 1920s, they were permitted to open grocery stores in and near black communities, becoming the primary suppliers of foods and other household goods for black people. Wrote Justin Nystrom, “By the 1920s, groceries had become the only occupation of the Delta’s Chinese, with family members joining their kin in the Delta and taking advantage of hui, or the pooled capital of relatives, to open their own nearby stores.” An hour or so from Clarksdale, where Sinners takes place, the town of Greenville had approximately 50 Chinese-Owned grocery stores for 40,000 people. Like black people, they were mostly segregated from white people and formed their own insular communities that were diluted by their interracial business mixing. After Remmick realized the black survivors were not willing to leave the house and be swayed by his promise, he turned to an outsider— who had been ready to go as soon as shit hit the fan. Grace’s decision to put the entire group in jeopardy when her daughter was threatened made her obviously my least favorite character.

9. The expanse of Sammie's life

At the beginning of the plot, Sammie shares a one-bedroom shack with multiple siblings and his parents... by the end of the film in 1992, he owned a club in Chicago and had a long music career. This is less of a historical takeaway and more of an existential one— every older person you meet or see has a rich inner history that we can’t fathom. When Stack and Mary visit Sammie in his club and say they listen to old records but still couldn’t re-visit the old feeling of the period they cherished and knew so well, the experienced fingers and voice of Sammie could provide the transportation they craved. On a relevant note, Sammie’s ability to summon ancestors with his music is the main reason Remmick wanted to possess Sammie in the first place. Lastly, on a non-history note, I think its worthy to mention that the purely black couple was granted the sweet release of death and a reunion in the next life with their daughter while the mixed couple is doomed to walk the earth together, avoiding the sun and feeding on the innocent. Was this intentional or purely accidental?

10. When Smoke and Stack are first introduced, Stack rolls the cigarette they share. 

Smoke and Stack, played by Michael B. Jordan in dual roles

It becomes apparent that Smoke can't roll. Later, Smoke struggles to roll a cigarette when he makes a final stand against the Klan, eventually asking the injured Grand Master to bum one. As veterans of World War I, the twins had been given cigarettes with their rations. The distribution of cigarettes during World War I was so prevalent that civic and private organizations (including the American Red Cross) created tobacco funds to raise money for them. Sixteen billion cigarettes were sent to the troops by the end of the war.

11. Black parties of the past/present/future

The Sugar Shack by Ernie Barnes

During the scene where Sammie performs and the party is joined by dancing spirits from the past and future, Remmick watches from outside and sees his prey dancing despite the mill being on fire. The scene was not doubt inspired by Ernie Barnes’s The Sugar Shack. Additionally, for me, the continued dancing despite the dangerous fire that Remmick envisioned represented the resilience of black people and other minorities, like the Chinese, to hold onto their culture, celebrate life, and enjoy themselves despite white supremacy’s attempts to snuff them out or assimilate them. As the world burns in the present, black people still find ways to have joy, which we discussed at length in A Black People's History of Parties.

I absolutely loved this movie and can tell its going to be one of my favorite comfort films. I wrote this on extremely short notice when I’m supposed to be working on other projects so I apologize if it’s not as thorough as usual, but I just had to get me thoughts off! If I could see the movie a second time I'm sure I'd pick up more history. If you haven't seen the film, you probably don't care about spoilers but I implore you to watch anyways! I say this as someone who did not really care for Ryan Coogler’s most popular film, Black Panther. For those of you who’ve seen the film, what other historical connections did you catch? Who was your favorite character? Let me know in the comments!

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