African American Movies and DVD's

African American films often focused on the troubling history of blacks in America. As most people know, Africans were taken from their homeland and transported to the United States, where they were forced to work as unpaid workers, and were often abused and subjected to inhumane treatment. It was not until Abraham Lincoln's famous Emancipation Proclamation composed in 1863 that slaves were officially released.

Although African Americans were considered free by the law, many U.S. states (most of which are in the south) and continue to discriminate against black people and treat them as second class citizens. In fact, Jim Crow laws were established in many southern states with the tacit goal of keeping the whites separate from blacks.

This meant that white and blacks were forced to attend segregated schools, drink from different water fountains, and even had to eat in different restaurants. This unequal treatment is not seriously challenged until Rosa Parks refused to give up his place on the white person on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. This event is a seed to put in motion the civil rights movement, led by exceptional people like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Many African American films have chronicled the experience of blacks in the U.S. and tried to make sense of discrimination that they suffered. One of the most popular African American films called Roots. the film is actually one of the first miniseries to appear on television and it remains one of the highest-rated program in network history. The program will go on to win nine Emmy awards, as well as the number of Golden Globe and Peabody departments.

is the story of an African warrior Kunta Kinte by name, who was taken from his home and forced to work on American plantations. The series follows the protagonist for several generations while his great grand-children finally get their independence after a civil war.

Roots To this day ranks as one of the most respected African American DVDs. Perhaps this is because the centers of the oppressed groups of people fighting for their freedom, which is apparently a universal theme. The miniseries was based on the book by renowned author and journalist Alex Haley

Today, however, most African-American films do not focus on slavery or even the civil rights movement. Instead, they do concern the situation of blacks in urban areas. These movies tend to portray characters who are surrounded by drugs and crime, and desperately trying to break out of the ghetto.

One of the most powerful African-American DVDs in the past twenty years was the film "Boyz n the Hood. " This film tells the story of a young man who tries to survive on the violent streets of South Central Los Angeles. The film is set in the early nineteen nineties when violent gangs roamed the streets and young men often turned up dead for no other reason than that they wore the wrong color clothing. the film remains a powerful example of the seemingly intractable problems in the African American community.