Five on the Black Hand Side: Identity and Family Conflict

Introduction: Setting the Scene

Five on the Black Hand Side is a 1973 comedy directed by Oscar Williams that investigates the social and familial tensions found within the Black community during the late 1960s and into the 1970s, a period when individuals were actively attempting to establish their identities within society. In the film, Mr. Brooks represents the man every Black man aspired to be: married, educated, disciplined, and the owner of his own business. However, Mr. Brooks's character and ambitions are met with resistance as his wife, Mrs. Brooks, and his children — Shariff (also known as Booker T. Washington), Gail, and Gideon — refuse to conform to his expectations and attitudes.

Throughout his life, Mr. Brooks has worked hard to become a successful and respected man in his community. In the process, however, he has alienated his family and turned his back on his heritage and culture. Mr. Brooks is domineering and expects everyone around him to conform to his beliefs. The film does an effective job of demonstrating how conflict manifests within the Black community, because this conflict does not center on racial differences but rather questions of identity and the individual within the community.

Marital Power Dynamics and Internal Inequality

The first example of tension appears in the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Brooks. The way the two are presented makes it initially difficult to recognize that they are married, as Mr. Brooks's personality so thoroughly dominates Mrs. Brooks's. While Mr. Brooks is portrayed as strong-willed, Mrs. Brooks is meek — almost as though she were a servant rather than a wife. Ironically, through this married couple, Williams demonstrates that although Black Americans have broken free from subjugation by whites, the power dynamic within the community itself remains skewed.

Furthermore, the film reveals that in Mr. Brooks's pursuit of success, he has inadvertently and subconsciously adopted the behaviors and attitudes of his white counterparts, thereby continuing to propagate inequality within his own household. Mrs. Brooks struggles to secure equality within her relationship and ultimately recognizes that she — like so many before her — must forcibly claim what she not only wants, but deserves. This dynamic echoes broader conversations about African American cultural identity and the internalization of dominant social hierarchies.

Generational Conflict Among the Brooks Children

Social tension within the film is also visible among the Brooks children. Gideon refuses to live inside the house, choosing instead to sleep on the roof. He is the most militant and proactive of the children in voicing the need for change, and he actively encourages the embrace of African culture — a heritage that Mr. Brooks appears to have abandoned entirely.

On the other hand, Shariff — also known as Booker T. — demonstrates attitudes disturbingly similar to his father's. He admits that he prefers to date white women because he is intimidated by Black women, insinuating that he desires to exercise control over women but finds that Black women's independence and self-advocacy challenge that impulse. Together, Gideon and Shariff represent two opposing responses to the same fractured sense of cultural identity: one radical and culturally affirmative, the other assimilationist and self-undermining.

Conclusion: Identity, Heritage, and Self-Definition

While the shifts in character attitude occur within an unrealistically compressed timeframe, the film nonetheless reflects a community's profound desire to establish its own identity. Five on the Black Hand Side argues that Black Americans cannot continue striving to be a copy of what white society considers ideal. Instead, their identity should be grounded in who they are, who they were, and who they aspire to be. As scholars of the Black Power movement have noted, this period was defined by exactly this kind of cultural reckoning.

The film also makes clear that there is nothing inherently wrong with embracing the values of another community, but that an individual should never define themselves solely by another's expectations. It is a distinction between openness and erasure — and one that remains as relevant today as it was in 1973.