My Past Is My Own

My Past Is My Own is a madefortelevision movie which aired as a CBS Schoolbreak Special on January 24, 1989. The film is centered on a sitin in the early 1960s at a racially segregated lunch counter in the Southern United States. Whoopi Goldberg, Phill Lewis and Allison Dean portray the lead characters.

Justin Cook Phill Lewis and his sister Kerry Allison Dean are two African American teenagers living in a middleclass New Jersey household in the late 1980s. The Cook family is visited by their distant cousin, psychologist Mariah Johnston Whoopi Goldberg. A contemporary of Justin and Kerrys parents, Mariah is about to receive an award for her years of community work, particularly in the area of civil rights. Having been born after the Civil Rights Movement, Justin and Kerry never experienced Jim Crow segregation, and the two fail to appreciate the stories about the era that Mariah and their parents recount at dinner.While Justin and Kerry sleep that night, they are mysteriously transported to a small town in Georgia in the early 1960s. While there, the siblings participate in a sitin at a segregated lunch counter. The protest is staged by a group of local teenagers and young adultsincluding their cousin Mariah. The siblings are horrified by the hostility and racism of local White residents, and inspired by the strength displayed by Mariah and the others as the group is harassed during the sitin. ........

Source: Wikipedia