slavery in the making of america
... demonstrating that Africans African Americans were not passive victims but survivors who refused to concede their culture, character or spirit to the system that persecuted them. The movie showed us the integral role slavery played in the growth of this country most especially in the Southern and Northern states. The fact that slaves were not a monolithic group but rather, individuals who came from many different cultures and were empowered by their backgrounds to navigate the environment into which they were thrust, and that they sought freedom in many ways, from joining the ranks of the British during the American Revolution to running off to Canada or joining rebel communities The movie series uses dramatic re-creations to take viewers back in time and deep into the mind of the slave. These re-creations capture the isolation and the misery of Harriet Jacob's life as a runaway slave in North Carolina, where Harriet spent seven years hiding out in the small attic space underneath her grandmother's roof, while surrounded by rats and mice, with no light and little air. They told us in dramatic detail of the daring escapes of John Punch, who fled a Chesapeake Bay tobacco farm on foot, and Robert Smalls, who dared to steal a Confederate ship and sail it to freedom. The movie also depicts the backbreaking, and physical and psychologica...