There was a case in point a couple of weeks ago, when the American Film Institute came out with another one of their "best movies of all times" polls. You’ve probably seen those polls around. They had "best 100 movies of all time" (And it was either "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane" that won) and "Best 100 comedies of all time" ("Some Like It Hot"). AFI, pleased with the attention and controversy the lists engendered, produced more lists, a cycle of attainments that can only get more dubious as time goes on. ("Best 100 black and white Bulgarian films directed by a left-handed albino director addressing the social problem of scurvy" for example. I can’t think of more than ten such that are worth seeing...)

But most recently, they had Best heroes and villains – 50 of each – and those lists drew attention. "Best villain" was Hannibal Lector, of course, and the usual suspects were in the top ten: Darth Vader, Nurse Ratched, Freddie, and so on. Similarly, most of the top heroes were what you would expect: Indiana Jones, Superman, Luke Skywalker, Rick (from "Casablanca") and so forth. They were mostly of the action/adventure variety. (One character made BOTH lists, although unfortunately it wasn’t a complex Tony Soprano type who both attracts and repels; it was the Terminator, who was the villain in one movie, and was reprogrammed into the hero in the next movie.)

But the winner of the "Best 50 movie heroes of all time" was a surprise, and a very pleasant surprise.

Gregory Peck’s "Atticus Finch" won it. The modest, decent lawyer who defies the prejudices of a deep southern town in the 1930s in order to give a black man a chance at a fair trial was as far removed from the action/adventure genre as you can get. Peck, a perfect match for the role, was earnest, decent, honest, honorable, and exhibited a quiet sort of bravery nearly impossible to convey in movies. "To Kill a Mockingbird," based on Harper Lee’s novel of the same name, was a quiet, unassuming movie that, like the book, rocked America and forced us to examine how white people treated black people.

Peck won the Oscar for that role, and 40 years after, both the book and the movie sell well, and still affect and stir the hearts of millions of people. It was a nice element that the poll was announced a week before Gregory Peck’s death, so he could enjoy one last, wonderful accolade for his marvelous career.

What made Atticus Finch a hero was his decency, and his ability to bring out a sense of decency in us. He stirred James Carville, who read Lee’s novel and declared, "We’re right; they’re wrong" and later wrote his own novel with the title based on the phrase that marked the moment a budding young white bigot in Louisiana recognized the error of his ways and became a good man.

Every decent person in American wanted to be Atticus Finch, and it’s a tribute to us all that enough people feel that way forty years later that he was polled the greatest movie hero of all time.

That brings us to Tulia, Texas.

Tulia, a town of some 5,000, is about 90% white, and a significant portion of those whites are virulent racists. At some point, they decided that something needed to be done about all the colored riff-raff who, despite pointed hints from their betters, refused to abandon their homes and leave town.

So what Tulia did was the small-town Texas version of Hitler’s final solution: they rounded up some 10% of the black population, accused them of buying drugs from an undercover officer named Tom Coleman, and promptly ran eight trials, where despite the lack of any evidence of any sort beyond Coleman’s claims, they sentenced the defendants to up to 90 years in prison, a move which encouraged other similarly accused blacks to cop pleas in hopes of more lenient sentences of, say, eight years.

Mind you, there is no evidence that any of these people committed the crimes for which they were being jailed.

It was an insane travesty of justice, similar to that perpetrated by John Ashcroft’s Ministry against the 738 Arabs who happened to be in eyeshot of a cop in the days following 9/11. (That "roundup of terrorists" resulted in one – count ‘em, one – conviction, and that for a crime unrelated to terrorism in any way.)

It sparked a four year struggle for justice for the dozens rounded up and jailed that night. Hundreds of lawyers and civil libertarians from all over America chipped in.

Thirty eight people were convicted of drug crimes, despite all lack of any physical evidence of any sort. Twenty-five went to jail (the others agreed to leave town).During the four years, nine served their time and were released.

Twelve of those remaining in prison were freed by executive order yesterday, and the undercover cop, Coleman, is facing charges of perjury.

That they were imprisoned in the first place is disgraceful.

That they were freed showed that in our hearts, we still want to be like Atticus Finch.

In Tulia, white residents are being reported as being bitter, simultaneously complaining of being viewed as racist while also saying that those darkies wouldn’t have been in jail if they hadn’t done SOMETHING wrong.

Fortunately for humanity, there are more people who want to be like Atticus Finch than like Tom Coleman.

Racism is a blight upon our moral character, and it isn’t going to go away until humanity evolves a bit further from the mindset that drove us to war against neighboring tribes for food, for women, for other resources.

But the adulation of Atticus Finch, and the resolution of the Tulia miscarriage of justice, shows that we’re taking some steps in the right direction.