African In America's Journey Through Slavery

Art: Black History The documentary “Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery”, has four parts that originally aired in October 1998 on PBS. The documentary traces the African American’s history from the early period of the colonial area to the time of the Civil War. The four episodes are, “Brotherly Love”, “Revolution”, “The Terrible Transformation” and “Judgment Day”. The documentary is directed and produced by Susan Bellows, Orlando Bagwell, Jacquie Jones, Llewellyn Smith and Noland Walker for WGNH Boston. Steve Fayer is the author. The main intention of the film was to provide a powerful reminder about the black resilience and for the oppressiveness of the slavery. The film provides considerable attention to the free blacks, but the main focus remains to be the enslaved blacks through the struggle of overcoming and struggling with slavery. The documentary shows a range of images pieced together to present a steady mosaic on the theme of suffering from endurance. The film presents shots of landscapes and paintings. It shows shots of landscapes and paintings. Those appearing are mostly the historians like Norrece T. Jones, David Blight, …show more content…
It instead portrays the struggles of men and women in dealing with the circumstances they have to face. Social institutions, such as the church of the African Methodist Episcopal Church also play its role in helping the oppressed in the society in escaping. Thus, this documentary of Africans in America interweaves the twin themes of resistances and oppression into a signal message for the two generations in the history of slavery. It tells us the value and beliefs of humanity especially on equality whereby, no man is superior to the other. It shows the socially acceptable and unacceptable values; the unacceptable are cruelty and oppression towards the black