War on the home front
Trai Byers mines brutal history for ‘The 24th’
Trai Byers knows “The 24th” is more than just a tough movie about a tough, terrible time. Set in 1917 Houston, Texas, the Army’s all-black 24th Infantry Regiment is stationed with little hope of being shipped overseas to Europe to fight.
The unrelenting, daily brutality, racism and violence of the Jim Crow South leads the soldiers to what is called the Houston Riot. In just two hours nine civilians, four policemen and two soldiers were killed. The subsequent murder trial saw 19 sentenced to death and 41 to life sentences.
Byers, probably best known as Andre, one of the three sons on “Empire” wrestling for control of their father’s recording empire, wrote the screenplay with Kevin Wilmott (an Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay with Spike Lee for “BlacKkKlansman”).
Wilmott is a college professor who’s also a filmmaker (“C.S.A.: Confederate States of America”).
“For this film,” Byers said, “Kevin first wrote a draft with a different title I think 20 years ago.
“I met Kevin at a University of Kansas screenwriting class. He became a good friend and wrote a letter of recommendation for me to the Yale School of Drama,” said Byers, 37, also a Kansas native.
As to the Houston Riot, “I had no idea about this. Everybody I talked to about it, agents and casting people — nobody knew anything. Historians know and people curious about race relations in America who go digging for it.
“The sad part of it is there’s a lot more cities around the nation where this happened than just in Texas and it had never been taught.
“That’s the good thing about this: It will spark the audience to know more about their history.”
As Boston, an educated soldier who had lived as a free man in Paris, Byers is more than the film’s leading character.
“Boston is a light-skinned black man who at the time was educated in the best schools of the world. He joined the Army, as so many Black people did, and wanted to do his part. He wouldn’t be well received from the dark-skinned soldiers who resented the privilege my character has because he’s light-skinned.
“We were telling the truth about race, about Blacks with Blacks and how they’re getting along.”
For Byers “The 24th” is a big career break. “This film is more like me than anything I’ve done before. Like Boston I feel destiny at my heels.
“I’ve been an actor for so long I’ve been blessed to do a lot of things artistically. This is taking the bull by its horn.”