It's the 1880's. Sidney Poitier plays a bounty hunter named Gypsy Smith, half of African American, half of Cherokee descent. He helps African American settlers to find a new home in the town of their own- Freedom in the Oklahoma territory. The local KKK tries to prevent their plan with their mindless cross burnings and killings. Meanwhile Rachel Maxwell is madly in love with the Cheyenne boy, White Wolf, who was brought to live with the family by Gypsy. Children of the Dust (1995) is a two-part western miniseries directed by David Greene. It shows us what racism looked like in the old west in a touching way. What the Ku Klux Klan does here is really heartbreaking and causes anger in the viewer. Sidney Poitier, now 92, gives a very strong performance as the aging gunslinger. There's certain sweetness between the scenes of Gypsy and the schoolteacher Drusilla, wonderfully played by Regina Taylor. Joanna Going is superb as Rachel and Billy Wirth is terrific as Corby/White Wolf. There is a great deal of eroticism and romance in many scenes between them. Michael Moriarty is fantastic as John Maxwell and so is Farrah Fawcett as his wife Nora. Hart Bochner is scary good as the villain Shelby Hornbeck. There are also talents like Shirley Knight, James Caviezel and Robert Guillaume in the movie. I recommend you take a look at this miniseries when you get a chance. At least I was moved by it.
Review of Children of the Dust
