4 Movies for African-American Children
If you want to share and teach your kids about the African-American culture, here are some of the best films to watch over the weekend. Photo credit: Amazon
1. The Journey of Henry Box Brown – This educational animated movie recounts the true story of a slave who escaped his way to freedom by shipping himself in a crate. The journey lasted for 27 hours.
In the movie, Brown narrates the story to a few animals to help them to understand the significance of freedom. Throughout the entire story, the topic of slavery is explained when Brown’s family was sold. This includes the hardships he experienced as a slave.
The main theme of the story is about slavery, how importance freedom is, and the notion that it is morally wrong to enslave people. The main concept of the movie may be a bit heavy and
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Dancing in the Light: The Janet Collins Story – This animated short film is based on the true to life story of Janet Collins. Her passion, dedication, and determination to pursue her love for ballet pushed her to become the first African-American ballet dancer in the US to perform in the Metropolitan Opera …show more content…
The film uses visual animation to attract the younger kids. At the same time, the storyline is simple and easy to understand.
3. Garrett’s Gift – This film is based on the history of how the traffic light was invented. It takes a peek at what inspired the inventor Garrett Morgan to come up with his innovative idea. The story delves on Morgan’s childhood and how he often daydreamed about many things.
His unusual way of looking at things led him to come up with an efficient method of providing safety for motorists. This film educates kids by providing them with historical facts on the achievements made by African-American people. The story is narrated by Queen
This movie is about the musician James Brown. James grew up in Barnwell, South Carolina to Joe and Susie Brown. James did not have the best childhood, and grew up in poverty. He lived in a small one room shack in the woods. When he was around the age of 4, his parents decided to split up, and he was sent to live with his Aunt Honey. His Aunt Honey was the owner of a brothel in Augusta, Georgia. When he lived with his aunt, James would work whatever kind of jobs he could to make some money. He would sing and dance for the soldiers for pennies. He later began to shine shoes for a nickel. A few other odd jobs he had were picking cotton, and washing cars. Growing up Black in the South as very difficult for James, so he decided to turn to music to help him get through. He first starting his singing career and a member of his church's choir.
Brown was born in a town in the north, surrounded by those who were anti-slavery. He himself was passionate about the abolitionist movement. A movement minuscule at the time of his birth. John, a white man, felt as though the slaves deserved the same treatment as he himself did. This very position he was willing to die for. Fifty-five years after his death he started out on his cause. 1855, he assisted in the escape of slaves, an act that was
The story gives us an example of all that was said in class about the slaves, and that most of them do not even remember much of where they came from, since was captured as a child or very young. It also reinforces the fact that the economic, political and social power always has been the command of the society when is shown that only the important men was really heard in the court, and the poor slaves that did not have education and a good vocabulary was discriminated because of their conditions.
The theme I would like to analyze after watching this film would be the inequitable situation the black Americans were put in during that time period. As the slaves freed the civil war and also as the government implemented the emancipation,
The second Afro-American contribution to theatre is the slave narrative. This narrative was something new and entirely original to American culture. The plots developed from oral stories passed on about run-away slaves. Traylor discusses Fredrick Douglas's Narrative and William Wells Brown's The Escape as good examples of the slave narrative. Both pieces have strong language and lyrical quality.
This theme is not as strong in the movie, but it is still definitely seen. White people are more privileged than black people, and younger readers can get a good idea of what like was like in the 1930’s. This is a great story and message for all
Minstrel shows were developed in the 1840's and reached its peak after the Civil War. They managed to remain popular into the early 1900s. The Minstrel shows were shows in which white performers would paint their faces black and act the role of an African American. This was called black facing. The minstrel show evolved from two types of entertainment popular in America before 1830: the impersonation of blacks given by white actors between acts of plays or during circuses, and the performances of black musicians who sang, with banjo accompaniment, in city streets. The 'father of American minstrelsy' was Thomas Dartmouth 'Daddy' Rice, who between 1828 and 1831 developed a song-and-dance routine in which he impersonated an old, crippled
His story “Twelve Years a slave” has been made into a movie and is very heart touching. In his story he described what it was like to be treated as human property.
Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were
Watching the film, I had mixed feelings. One emotion was understanding. In the beginning, Africans sold their people away for guns, money, and etc. because slavery was a business to the world. I wasn’t just one race enslaving another. Emotion two was proud. I know many people do not look at slavery and say I am so proud. America would not be America without blacks. The white people just stood there and watched blacks make America and took the credit for it. Like the man in the video said everything we touched we made it better. From the food to the music there was nothing that could have stopped blacks from making American their homes. What also caught my eye was Haitian slave rebellion. I did not know that they ended their own slavery by
The movie takes up a lot of subjects. One obvious is slavery. There is also discrimination of women and human trafficking.
Black people have played an important role in American history and made great contributions to the development on economy and culture of the U.S. This week watching Kevin Everson’s series short films, I have a deeper understanding of ethnography cinema distinguished from documentary. His film focusing on the subject matter of African American, transfers their ordinary life into a sublimation of nationality. He uses found footage in According To and Something Else to practice its ethnographic interaction between image and audiences.
Though these years were not without their own struggles, they are depicted as the happiest years of Brown’s life. It was a period when an unusable body did not phase Brown and the noticeable differences between him and his sibling were not obvious enough to divide him from his family. Many astounding triumphs were also achieved during this time, such as his first effort to communicate by drawing a shaky ‘A’ with a piece of chalk stuck between the toes of his left foot. So much promise, humor, and determination are found within this young boy until his freedom is lost with the breaking of his chariot that forces him to realize his differences from the other
balanced, realistic depictions of blacks in America The film is about a Chicago family who
This film was based on the time period, as Calvert describes it in The Myth Of The Old South, downloaded May 8, of the Antebellum South, filled with large, prosperous plantations and big white, columned houses. In the Old South, before any equal protection laws were ratified, slavery was a central and important part of