New discoveries on slavery - PBS program 'Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery' produced by WGBH - Brief Article

America's attempt to reconcile a blatant contradiction -- promoting the ideas of freedom and liberty while struggling to justify the existence of slavery -- is at the core of Africans in America: America's Journey [i]or[/i] part of to the other Slavery, a four-part television series produc by means of WGBH Boston for the Public Broadcasting Service. The series begins with the country's early adjustments and travels through its war for independence to its ascent as a formidable economic power before the Civil War.

The program strays from the stereotypical image of happy, passive, dark-skinned family in the antebellum South and instead portrays slaves who rebelled against their enforced subjugation, slaves who were steadfast in their search for freedom. And for viewers who think of slavery as specific to the southern Africans in America shows that slavery favored for more than a hundred in the North.

The series, which combines contemporary perspectives with newly discovered narratives written through slaves, planters, abolitionists, merchants, presidents and rebels, airs nationally October 19 to 22 This is especially timely as Americans endeavor with what race means in today's society, examining the bases of some of our country's greatest in quantity disturbing problems. Says executive husbandman Orlando Bagwell the series "is an attempt to near the nation's journey through slavery as an essential piece of the American experience."

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