Bernice Johnson Reagon Movies

Take a closer look at the women artists who changed the face of modern music in this documentary from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Dee Mosbacher. Before there was Ani Di Franco and Melissa Etheridge, female recording artists were struggling to shatter stereotypes and find an audience for their music. It was their sacrifices that made the careers of some of today's hottest female recording artists possible, and this is their film. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In the years between 1791 and 1831, with the United States newly independent, the Enlightenment spirit of equality and freedom stood directly at odds with the demands of economic expediency. The invention of the cotton gin caused an insatiable demand for cheap labor and led to an ever more vocal proslavery constituency, but abolitionism was also beginning to catch on. Volume Three of WGBH's Africans in America series looks at this tempestuous era through the lives of the dynamic men and women who fought either to maintain or to revolutionize their way of life. The booming urban environment of Philadelphia is covered extensively, including the growth of a black middle class, Absalom Jones' and Richard Allen's Free African Society, the Yellow Fever epidemic, female activism, Benjamin Franklin's involvement with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and the proposal by some to create a free black homeland back in Africa. The slave revolt in Haiti and several organized rebellions in America are also discussed. ~ Sarah Welsh, Rovi

An historical event in itself, this ambitious documentary series from WGBH Boston reexamines the institutions and personal narratives behind America's heritage of slavery, disclosing and inviting viewers to face the undeniable truths they might not have learned in school, truths that still influence life in America. Volume One covers the period from 1450 to 1750: the origins of indentured servitude in Europe, the Portuguese search for gold in Africa and subsequent capture of African laborers, and the growth of the Caribbean and North American colonies. The title, The Terrible Transformation, refers to several concurrent transformations in America, including the slow, deliberate process in which indentured servants became slaves for life, the transformation of free colonies into slave states, and the loss of hope among Africans who began to realize that their children would inherit the scourge of slavery. Finally, this documentary covers the history of preexisting forms of "slavery" in Africa, the Middle Passage in which half of the human cargo perished, the bondage of European laborers in the New World, and the economic realities that fostered the slave system. Africans in America relies heavily on rare images and first-person accounts for its startling revelations and dramatic reenactments. It also features modern perspectives and interpretations by prominent cultural and academic figures, including John Edgar Wideman, Barry Unsworth, and Colin Powell. Ideal for educational use. ~ Sarah Welsh, Rovi