Ordinarily, I’d be posting a video for History Monday, but not today.
Today I’m posting the link to the 2014 Best Picture Oscar Award-winning 12 Years a Slave. I’d post a link to the movie itself, but I’m certain it will return to theaters in the very near future, and I encourage you to go see it.
12 Years a Slave is a tough watch because it presents the terrible, cold, hard, unshakable reality of slavery. Solomon Northrup’s story is Roots for today’s world.
Movies like these bring home the truth, whether people want to hear it or not. It is important to tell these stories, especially today, when people like Arkansas state representative Jon Hubbard can be so remarkably unclear about the cost that they can suggest slavery was a “blessing in disguise” and sites like Save Our Heritage (which I refuse to link to – you can go find this one on your own) post the sort of revisionist history that would have you believe being a slave isn’t so bad, and that we ought to return to those times.
You can complain about reality all you want, but you can’t alter it. That’s why it’s reality. It’s what happened. And what’s happening now, today, here in the US and abroad. That’s how I dedicate my Mondays this year: To recognizing the truth.
[Revised to add…]
So, because I haven’t got a live link to either 12 Years a Slave or Roots, I give you a different documentary, entitled Slavery and the Making of America. Yeah, it’s long. It’s also important. And I’m adding it here after the initial posting date, because I found it after I posted.
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