Inspiring Tale of Friendship Amid Prejudice

People are not born with a predisposition for prejudice. Hatred and racial injustice are learned as one matures.

“It’s social,” offers Dean Cain. “It’s acquired.”

Prejudice is the central theme of actor Cain’s latest project, the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” presentation “The Runaway,” premiering Sunday on CBS.

The inspiring story focuses on the friendship between a young African American boy, Sonny (Duane McLaughlin), and a white boy, Luke (Cody Newton), in a racially segregated small Georgia town in the late 1940s.

However, their friendship nearly unravels when they set out on a fun adventure only to discover a clue that could lead to the knowledge of who murdered three local black men--one of whom was Sonny’s father. Cain’s noble Sheriff Frank Richards, a World War II vet who grew up in the town, pursues the case, but finds that most of the townspeople would rather the murders not be solved.

“It’s a tough project,” says Cain. “But the movie means something that is very sincere.”

Sheriff Richards, says Cain, doesn’t see black or white: “He sees right and wrong. He does his best to remedy the situation but the townspeople turn against him. People don’t want to upset the status quo.”

Director Arthur Allan Seidelman believes Ron Raley’s adaptation of Terry Kay’s novel is very brave for a network movie. “The script doesn’t compromise,” he says. “It talks about rape and racial injustice in a very straightforward way. It’s going to make some people uncomfortable.”

Debbi Morgan, who plays Sonny’s loving mother, grew up in a little town in North Carolina just an hour’s drive from the film’s location in Wilmington. Whenever she returns to that area, the actress says, she senses the spirits and the voices of African Americans who endured racial injustices.

“Whenever I come back to that part of the country it is like being taken back in time,” says Morgan. “I find whenever I do stories like this [dealing with racism and prejudice], it’s painful because you don’t have any direct memory of what had happened, but it is like you can feel the spirits. You can feel it in the air. You are just breathing it in.”

Morgan is especially proud of the scene in which her character tells Luke that it’s probably best he doesn’t remain friends with her son.

“I look at this on a large scale as a coming-of-age story and a loss of innocence,” Morgan says. “The boys reach a point where they have to come to grips with how different the world is for each of them. The white boy is so innocent and so unaware. They don’t understand the world the way adults do. That is one of the saddest things about racism. We are not brought here with any of those feelings.”

Seidelman acknowledges it’s a challenge to direct a piece that deals with the dark side of human nature. “But when you are doing a piece where the intent is to get at truth and when you are dealing with actors whose allegiance is to truth and not to fabrication, then that is your armor and that is your sword. There are moments, when I, as the director, feel a knot in my stomach hearing these words, dealing with this kind of animosity and hatred, but you know, if you shy away from it and chicken out, you are not serving truth. So you have to go forward honestly.”

To prepare the young boys for their roles, Seidelman had them look at their ancestors. “I sort of went back a couple of generations with them,” he says. “The white boy is from the South, so he kind of related to all the things I reminded him of in previous generations. His grandmother, who was with him, shed light. She talked about what she experienced as a girl.”

McLaughlin hails from New York City and “therefore had a different frame of reference,” says Seidelman. “But we spoke about his grandfather, who was one of the first black servicemen in a highly trained exclusive combat unit. We talked about what he knew his grandfather had suffered. Both kids were wonderfully honest and truthful in their work, so they were able to find the pain.”