Year of Release: 2011
Rated: Not Rated
Approx. Running Time: 306 minutes
Format(s): DVD (2 discs)
My Rating: 4 stars (Out of 5)
From Back Cover:
"SUCCESS IS TO BE MEASURED NOT SO MUCH BY THE POSITION
THAT ONE HAS REACHED IN LIFE AS BY THE OBSTACLES
WHICH HE HAS OVERCOME WHILE TRYING TO SUCCEED."
-BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
In 1860, asthe American Experiment threatened to explode into a bloody civil war, there were as many as four hundred thousand slave-owners in the United States, and almost four million slaves.
The nation was founded upon the idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The nation would pay a bloody cost for denying those rights to more than twelve percent of its population. But when slavery was first brought to America's shores, this war, and even the nation it tore apart, was centuries in the future.
How did it come to pass that more than 10 million African men and women would be brought against their will to the New World? How could educated, deeply religious Europeans trade the human flesh as casually as they traded sugar and rice?
With incredibly detailed historical reenactments, expert commentary ad the stories of slavery told through first-hand accounts, this is an epic struggle 400 years in the making. This is a journey into the past like none othe. This is the story of these men and women who by their hands laid the foundation of what would become the most powerful nation on Earth. Join us as we rise... UP FROM SLAVERY.
PART ONE: 1619 Virginia - The First African Slaves Arrive
PART TWO: 18th Century Colonial America and Slavery Under the Rule of the British Empire
PART THREE: Slavery in the United States After the Revolution
PART FOUR: Nat Turner's Rebellion, 1831
PART FIVE: Abolition From the North Grows
PART SIX: Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation
PART SEVEN: Aftermath of the Civil War and New "Freedom"
My Comments:
This is a pretty comprehensive (and long) documentary series that chronicles the history of slavery in America, from the first few slaves brought to Jamestown, to the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction. Although it doesn't offer any real revelations, it does provide a more complete picture of the reality slavery and the differences in the experiences of slaves in various geographical regions than I've seen in other films on the subject.
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Not Rated (MPAA)
4 Stars
2011 (Year Of Release)
Documentary
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