Real events that inspired Regina King’s ‘One Night in Miami’

Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown really met at a Florida motel in 1964. Here’s what we know about that historic night and the events surrounding it.
Photo: courtesy of Amazon Studios

Regina King’s One night in Miami revolves around a constellation of black talent who appeared at the Hampton House Motel in Overtown, Fla. on February 25, 1964. Here are four exceptional minds, each of whom has made history and eager to see where they are. would go next: a 22 – Cassius Clay (played by Eli Goree), a year before the boxer changed his name to Muhammad Ali and just after beating Sonny Liston to become the heavyweight champion; Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), a year before his death; singer and songwriter Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), less than a year before his death; and NFL superstar and actor Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), ahead of the premiere of his first film. Today, we seem to know more about the FBI surveillance efforts that took place around that historic night than what was actually discussed, but the ambiguity of the real-life event was revealed. an opportunity for storytelling. King’s film, based on the 85-minute one-piece play by Kemp Powers, toys with the possible subject, imagining conversations about identity, integrity, social responsibility and more were on the table.

Powers (who also wrote the film adaptation) summed up One night in Miami as “a work of fiction fueled by truth”. And so the most amazing parts of this movie are true – yes, these four modern legends really had a night in Miami, and yes, they really bonded over vanilla ice cream. But in telling the story, King and Powers shakes up the timeline of events surrounding the hotel’s gathering, leaving some historical references unexamined and taking artistic liberties with others. Here are some of these historical references that have made their way One night in Miami:

Eli Goree as Cassius Clay (left) and the real Cassius Clay (right).
Photo-illustration: Amazon Studios and Stanley Weston / Getty Images

The film’s title appears on the recreation of an iconic image – Muhammad Ali in a swimming pool, posed as if he was in the ring and ready to strike. It’s a throwback to a set of famous, real-life images captured by photographer Flip Schulke in 1961, which documented the then 19-year-old Miami boxer. Ali and his trainer told Schulke that this was a common way for the boxer to train against resistance. But Schulke found out it was a lie three years later, writing in his 2003 book Witness of our time: “[Ali] didn’t even know how to swim… he fooled everyone – but it made some fantastic photos.

Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke (left) and the real Sam Cooke (right).
Photo-Illustration: Amazon Studios and Jess Rand / Michael Ochs Archive / Getty Images

Before arriving at the party in Malcolm’s hotel room, Sam Cooke is shown in One night in Miami working on a new song on his guitar. The lines he played would later become the actual song “Put Me Down Easy,” which was written for Cooke’s younger brother, LC Cooke, and released by Cooke’s record label SAR Records. Later in the film, Cooke brags about a group on the same label, The Valentinos, which made big royalties when Cooke allowed the Rolling Stones to cover their song “It’s All Over Now”. Discussions of Cooke’s business strategies become central to the conversation between the four characters in the film.

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X (left) and the real Malcolm X (right).
Photo-Illustration: Amazon Studios and Robert Parent / The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images / Getty Images

The Regina King film shows a side of Malcolm X that we don’t often see – the side that loved photography, as the character of Ben-Adir often appears with a camera in his hand. The real Malcolm X was indeed known to carry a still camera, the King Regula 111c, and a Bell and Howell 70DR camera, an extension of his interest in creating positive images for the Nation of Islam. Photographer Gordon Parks has described Malcolm’s approach to photography as “collecting evidence,” especially on his travels around the world. The final scene in One night in Miami, when Malcolm takes a photo of Ali behind a bar, take inspiration from this photo which has Malcolm with a camera in his hand.

The film’s central debate between Cooke and Malcolm is based on supposedly competing ideas of their duties as public figures. Malcolm suggests that Cooke might be “the loudest voice of all of us” if he chooses to incorporate more political messages into his work. The singer, however, claims he is able to have a different impact, securing economic freedom for black artists by dominating the charts from behind the scenes – including writing pop songs performed by white artists. The debate is entirely carried by the imagination of the powers. The writer told IndieWire that the One night in Miami the conversations were inspired by the thoughts of Powers when he realized he was the only person of color in the writers room for Star Trek: Discovery. “How much of myself do I have to sacrifice to be accepted in this environment, in this world?” Powers contemplated. “My psyche was divided in the middle. I put these arguments back in the mouth that inspired this way of thinking.

Aldis Hodge as Jim Brown (left) and the real Jim Brown (right).
Photo-illustration: Amazon Studios and Focus on Sport / Getty Images

The film surprises Jim Brown on the verge of a big career change that would turn the NFL full-back into an actor. His big-screen debut was the same year as the events of King’s movie, and the movie Brown mentions, in which he plays a Buffalo soldier who gets killed halfway, is Rio conchos. Brown would officially retire from football on the set of his next movie, The dirty dozen, a moment seen at the very end of One night in Miami. His career as a main and supporting character would include the Blaxploitation classic The Big Slaughter Scam, The running man, Any Sunday, and much more.

No, soul singer Jackie Wilson didn’t intentionally disrupt the sound system during a Sam Cooke performance in Boston, inspiring Cooke to lead audiences in an a cappella version of her 1962 hit, “Chain Gang.” But the mischief of this flashback scene is inspired by Wilson’s genuine knack for sabotaging Cooke in a playful way, as shown in this video, in which Wilson interrupts Cooke while trying to sync his song “Cha-Cha-Cha”. Speaking on the Write about podcast, Powers explained that this emotional flashback was “a composite of several shows.”

At the end of the film, Cooke releases a new song, “A Change Is Gonna Come”, on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. It actually happened – Cooke performed the song exactly once on TV, and King’s film recreates footage that has since been lost in time. But the context is awry. As Jack Hamilton points out in a recent Slate article on Cooke in the film, the film falsely portrayed Cooke’s pre-1964 songs “in order to make ‘Change’ sound like a bigger leap than it was. Yes, “A Change Is Gonna Come” was influenced by “Blowin ‘in the Wind”, but with songs like “Chain Gang” from the 1960s, Cooke was already making socially conscious songs that went way beyond more pop standards. simple. A night like February 25, 1964 wouldn’t have been an epiphany for Cooke, but perhaps an affirmation.

At the end of One night in Miami, Cassius Clay chooses to be called Cassius X, a nod to his Muslim friend and mentor, Malcolm X. But the latest footage from the film does not show Cassius X but Muhammad Ali accepted by the Nation of Islam. In real life, Malcolm X left the Nation several days after the Florida rally, following Muhammad Ali’s decision to choose Chief Elijah Muhammad over Malcolm as his mentor. In Ali’s autobiography in 2004 The soul of a butterfly, the boxer expressed regret over ending the relationship, calling it “one of the most regrettable mistakes in my life.” I wish I could tell Malcolm that I was sorry, that he was right about so many things. But he was killed before I got the chance.