The Color of Friendship

Set in South Africa and Washington, D.C., this drama follows Mahree Bok, a white teenager from a farm family that supports the apartheid government. Her father is a policeman who reacts with satisfaction when the activist Steve Biko is taken into custody. Selected for a school exchange semester in the United States, Mahree arrives expecting a certain kind of American household and finds instead that her hosts are Black. Piper Dellums, the daughter of a California congressman, has likewise anticipated a Black South African student, and both she and Mahree are taken aback by the other. Sharing a home across a semester, the two girls gradually confront the assumptions each brought from very different societies.

Kevin Hooks directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by Paris Qualles. It belongs to a run of features he directed that began with Strictly Business in 1991 and continued through Passenger 57, Irresistible Force, Fled and Black Dog, placing it sixth among the seven titles listed for him. The cast includes Carl Lumbly as Ron Dellums, Penny Johnson Jerald as Roscoe Dellums, Lindsey Haun as Mahree and Shadia Simmons as Piper, with a credited ensemble of thirty-three performers. Released in 2000 as an American television drama, it runs 83 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.2 from roughly 4,700 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.7 from a much smaller base of 72 votes, indicating a modest but settled level of audience approval.