We need a movie about the true story of Mike Shanklin brehs (Black CIA operative)

[Reality]

So apparently there was a black CIA operative named Mike Shanklin (active in the 80s / 90s) that had a pretty cool story. Never heard of breh before.

Story here (Cliffs below the cast):
Confessions of a Hero

Cast:

Mike - Denzel Washington

Italian PAWG - Monica Bellucci

Wealthy Somalian Businessman - Djimon Hounsou

General Aideed - Don Cheadle

Cliffnotes:

• Mike, a breh from Watts, LA, joins the USMC and fights in Vietnam, rising to rank of Major
• He joins the CIA and eventually becomes deputy station chief in Mogadishu, Somalia
• While deputy station chief, Mike befriends a wealthy Somalian businessman that provides intel on goings-on in the country as civil war erupts between the then dictator and Mohammed Aideed (the breh the Army was looking for during the operation that led to Black Hawk Down)
• The wealthy Somalian businessman has an Italian PAWG friend who is a humanitarian worker in the country; she and Mike become friends
• Somalia falls to Aideed, the US embassy is ordered to be evacuated, and Mike saves the station chief's ass by recovering valuable intel the chief fukked up and left behind, braving gunfire and maneuvering alone to get to the chief's spot to recover it; he is the last person out of embassy
• Mike goes on to serve as intelligence Liaison during Operation Desert Storm (Iraq), and then gets a safer desk job in London
• Mike, now estranged from his wife, gets bored and returns to Somalia to help hunt Aideed after Aideed's forces kill UN peacekeepers
• Mike is surpised to find that the Italian PAWG never left Somalia when it fell to Aibeed
• One night, the wealthy Somalian businessman accidentally kills himself playing his favorite game: Russian roulette
• Mike and the Italian PAWG strengthen their bond in their grief, developing a romantic relationship; they begin an affair that is in violation of CIA rules regarding relationships with foreigners
• Mike, initially thinking his operation is completely fukked, devises an op to capture Aideed's chief financier / #2, working with the wealthy businessman's right-hand man; it's successful and begins the undoing of Aideed
• Mike looks to get a cool, lowkey security job w/ CIA and start a new life with the Italian PAWG, but is blackballed due to violation
• After pursuing litigation, Mike realizes its over...he's done in any kind of fulfilling situation with the CIA
• Mike and Italian PAWG eventually marry, Mike comes to peace with the situation, and receives the CIA's second-highest honor, the Intelligence Star

 

[Reality]

Shoulda posted in higher learning. I'll take this L.

 

[Cadillac]

I can see it as a great successful movie

Doubt it will be made tho

 

[WaveGang]

Do you kno what a Somalian looks like lol

 

[Lucky_Lefty]

Interesting

 

[Reality]

Do you kno what a Somalian looks like lol

Ok. Find me Somalian looking actors

 

[SuikodenII]

I fukking love it

 

[Reality]

Stumbled on another black excellence story that is overdue for a movie...the story of medal of honor winner Edward Carter Jr.

Cliffnotes:

• Born to missionary parents, a black father and an Indian mother, in Los Angeles, CA in 1916 (that trend )
• Grows up in Calcutta, India and moves to Shanghai, China with parents there on mission
• Runs away from home while in Shanghai and joins the Chinese National Army to fight the invading Japanese Army
• Rises to the rank of Lieutenant in the Chinese Army
• Has a near-death / spiritual experience wherein he's visited by a spirit who tells him he'll be a great warrior, but will never die in combat
• Is forced to leave the Chinese Army once it's discovered he's only 15 years old
• Eventually makes his way to Europe where he joins a brigade fighting against Spanish fascists in the Spanish Civil War
• Once that war is over, he enters the US Army at age 25 in 1941
• His combat experience makes him a stand-out, and he rises to the rank of Staff Sergeant in less than a year
• In Spring of 1945, at 28 years old and deployed in Germany, a tank he is riding on is ambushed and disabled by a Nazi bazooka
• Engaging the Nazis, the men Carter is with are killed and Carter is wounded 5 times; he takes cover
• Eight Nazi soldiers come to capture him; he kills 6, and takes the other 2 as captives- using them as human shields against Nazi fire as he moves to safety
• He brings the 2 Nazis back to the rest of his unit, where they provide valuable intelligence on German troop locations
• For his acts that day, Carter returns home a hero and is awarded the Army's Distinguished Service Cross (the highest non-medal of honor medal one can receive in the Army)
• There is controversy because, by all accounts, his acts should have merited a Medal of Honor- however, not a single Medal of Honor was originally given to an African American for service in WWII
• In 1949, Carter is refused reenlistment in the Army because of his previous service fighting with Leftists in both China and Spain, in addition to affiliation with anti-prejudice / anti-racist groups and events in Los Angeles
• Carter enlists the support of the NAACP and hires an ACLU attorney to take up his case for re-enlistment, but to no avail. He sends his lawyer a letter with his medal enclosed and instructions to give it back to Harry Truman
• Carter's efforts are unsuccessful, and he dies from lung cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 47
• Nearly 45 years later, the US Government conducts a review of why no African Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor during WWII despite
• After an extensive review, Bill Clinton awards 7 African Americans with the Medal of Honor for their service in WWII. Six of them are recognized posthumously; Edward Carter is one of the six

Cast

Edward - Chadwick Boseman

Young Edward - Chadwick Boseman

Real Edward Carter

 

[Knights89]

both of these sound good. props @Reality

 

[Reality]

both of these sound good. props @Reality

These are the kinds of stories I wish would get burn in Hollywood. Stories that seem to get made about white individuals but never get made about us- stories about black people living lives you would watch in wonder. Stories with breadth and depth.

We get robbed of the chance to be portrayed as heroes and adventurers in the media, even though so many of us are exactly that.

 

[Mowgli]

Movies about brothas who ruined their careers/lives fighting for cacs, only to be honored in death by same cacs for political clout.

 

[Rekkapryde]

Do you kno what a Somalian looks like lol

 

[Thebadguy]

I'd like to see a movie about David Fagen. He was a black soldier in the Philippines who deserted and started fighting with the Filipino guerillas back in 1899

 

[Thebadguy]

Early life
Kea was born on 13 July 1917 in Milledgeville, Georgia. Her father was a gardener at the Ohio State Hospital for the Insane in Columbus where he was stabbed to death by a patient when Salaria was a baby. After his death the Kea family moved to Akron.[1] Kea's mother returned to Georgia, leaving Salaria in the care of her three older brothers. Salaria wanted to purse a career in nursing, but racial segregation policy of the day inhibited this goal in Ohio. She was forced to move on to New York City in 1930, where she graduated the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing in 1934.[1] As a student she managed to end the segregation in the Harlem Hospital's staff dining room and was also able to improve the working conditions of African American nurses. After her graduation Kea stayed in New York and became the head nurse of Seaview Hospital.[2] During her employment at Seaview she became politically active with the American left, eventually joining Communist Party USA in 1935.[1]

Spanish Civil War
During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935 Kea and her fellow nurses started raising money to send medical supplies to Ethiopian troops. She was also anxious to work as a nurse in Ethiopia but the emperor Haile Selassiedid not accept foreign volunteers. In 1936 she applied to join the American Red Cross to assist Midwest flood victims, but was rejected because of her ethnicity.

Following the outbreak if the Spanish Civil War in 1936 Kea lectured across the United States to raise funds for the Second Spanish Republic. During this time Kea developed strong anti-fascist views.[3] Kea decided to volunteer to serve in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and joined the American Medical Bureau working with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in March 1937.[2]

After her arrival in Spain, Kea helped establish a field hospital at Villa Paz near the Spanish capital Madrid.[3] She was captured by the Spanish Nationalist Army but managed to escape with the help of International Brigade soldiers after being held for six weeks. In Villa Paz, Kea met an injured Irish soldier, John Patrick O’Reilly, whom she later married. In early 1938, Kea was transferred to different units in Aragon, Lerida and Barcelona and was herself injured in a Nationalist bombing raid. Her wounds were so severe that she was sent back to the United States in May 1938. The same year, Kea wrote her Spanish memoirs While Passing Through. They were published as a pamphlet named Salaria Kea: A Negro Nurse in Republican Spain.[2]

World War II and later years
In 1940 John O’Reilly was allowed to immigrate the United States. He was soon drafted to serve in the military during World War II. In the beginning of 1944 Kea started working as a volunteer nurse for the United States Army as part of the first group of African American nurses the Army was allowed to recruit. In the United States Kea and O’Reilly experienced strong racism. In Akron they experienced personal threats and property damage, and Kea often referred to her time in the International Brigades as the best days of her life since they were free from discrimination After the war the O'Reilly family lived in New York, where Kea worked in several hospitals coordinating staff desegregation. In 1973 the couple retired to Akron where Kea died on 18 May 1990.