Passing Glory is a 1999 basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

-drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, written by Harold Sylvester

Harold Sylvester

Harold Sylvester is an American film and television actor.Sylvester was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. A graduate of New Orleans' St. Augustine High School and Tulane University, Sylvester is best known for his role on the TV series Married... with Children as Griff, the co-worker and friend of...

, and directed by Steve James

Steve James (producer)

Steve James is an American film producer and director of several documentaries, including the award-winning Hoop Dreams and Stevie. He is also the director of the 1997 feature film Prefontaine...

. This movie stars Andre Braugher

Andre Braugher

Andre Braugher is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Thomas Searles in the film Glory, as the fiery detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street from 1993 to 1998 and again in the 2000 made-for-TV film Homicide: Life on the Street, and as Owen Thoreau Jr...

, Rip Torn

Rip Torn

Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...

, and Sean Squire. The film also features a speaking role by Arthur Agee

Arthur Agee

Arthur "Man" Agee, Jr. is one of two Chicago-area high school basketball players whose lives were chronicled in the 1994 Kartemquin Films documentary, Hoop Dreams.-Early life:...

, the subject of the documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 "Hoop Dreams

Hoop Dreams

Hoop Dreams is a 1994 documentary film directed by Steve James, with Kartemquin Films. It follows the story of two African-American high school students in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players....

", also directed by Steve James. Music composed by Stephen James Taylor.

Plot

An angry black priest (Andre Braugher) in 1960s New Orleans goes against the wishes of his parish leader (Rip Torn) as he pushes a basketball game between his unbeaten all-black team and an undefeated all-white prep school team.
This is based on the true story of the first integrated basketball game in the history of New Orleans. The plot follows the events leading up to the game between all-black St. Augustine High School and all-white Jesuit High. It focuses on the struggles that Father Joseph Verette had in trying to pull the game off and trying to earn respect for his team.

Hired as a history teacher, Father Verrett will not let the athletes in his classes be given the special treatment that they've been used to. "I teach history," he informs the headmaster when asked to take over the suddenly vacant position of basketball coach. "I believe sports are overemphasized." Moreover, coming from the North, he can't understand why star black athletes don't go to the best white colleges, as they should. "Down here, 'should' and 'is' is a long ways apart," the dad of the team's star informs him.
The film includes many tangible examples of the racism then present. The blacks have to go to a separate "coloreds only" line at fast food outlets, and ordering a meal in the wrong place can and does get you thrown in jail.

Cast

• Andre Braugher
  Andre Braugher
  Andre Braugher is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Thomas Searles in the film Glory, as the fiery detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street from 1993 to 1998 and again in the 2000 made-for-TV film Homicide: Life on the Street, and as Owen Thoreau Jr...
  
   — Father Joseph Verrett
• Rip Torn
  Rip Torn
  Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
  
   — Father Robert Grant
• Sean Squire — Travis Porter
• Ruby Dee
  Ruby Dee
  Ruby Dee is an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist, perhaps best known for co-starring in the film A Raisin in the Sun and the film American Gangster for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Early years:Dee was born Ruby...
  
   — Mommit Porter
• Bill Nunn
  Bill Nunn
  -Early life:Nunn was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of William G. Nunn, Jr., a well-known journalist and editor at the Pittsburgh Courier, as well as an NFL scout. Nunn's paternal grandfather was the first African American football player at George Westinghouse High School.Nunn was a...
  
   — Howard Porter
• Daniel Hugh Kelly
  Daniel Hugh Kelly
  Daniel Hugh Kelly is an American stage, film and television actor. He may be best known for his role on the 1980s ABC TV series Hardcastle and McCormick from 1983-1986 for which he also wrote and directed...
  
   — Mike Malone Sr.
• Tony Colitti — Chick Viola
• Shawn Wright - Jerry Singer