Search - American Experience: Roots of Resistance: A Story of the Underground Railroad on DVD

Proud Black Resistance

Jeffery Mingo | Homewood, IL USA | 04/06/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Though the screen first says "American Experience," the techniques and style alone prove that it was not made by the series. Plus, I don't remember the series being around in 1990 when this was produced.

Along those lines, this was made in film, rather than video. There are no cheesy reenactments, instead props serve as symbols for historical facts. This work only had one historian interviewed; the other interviewees were the descendants of slaves and slave masters.

Abolition doesn't even come up in the first third of the documentary. I think the makers wanted to emphasize why slaves would want to run away first. I learned that Nat Turner was a minister, not an organic revolutionary. I learned that one of every 40 slaves ran away successfully. Not only did they flee to Canada, but Mexico and the Seminole Nation as well. I love learning more details about familiar topics.

This would be a good documentary to watch in high school and junior high history classes. The biracial interviewees and abolitionists may make white Americans not feel "threatened" by the subject of American slavery."