Gabrielle Mollin
Dear Henry Louis Gates Jr.,
Thank you so much for producing this film!!!!! I can describe it in one word, BREATHTAKING! I could see how hard you worked on this film. I learned so much in only the first episode! Imagine how much I learned in 6 hours! That’s a lot of facts! Therefore, Many Rivers To Cross is possibly the best documentary I’ve ever seen!
First of all, I felt like I was there. I was a slave picking cotton. I could feel my back aching and I felt like this was the end. I experienced segregation and used the “Green Book”. I listened to Martin Luther King Jr’s speech. I knew Malcolm X. I marched in Selma, Alabama. I was in tears when Martin Luther King was assassinated. That was the bad.
I was there in the good too. The Black Panther party. Kwanzaa! Soul Train and Afro Sheen! The Cosby show and Michael Jackson! And, when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Finally, BLACK POWER! Letting me have that experience just while watching your documentary was magical!
As I was learning about the bad and good times I noticed change in the way the music sounded. Something bad would happen and the music would sound melancholy. Like “Duh, nuh, Duh, nuh, nuh,nuh,uh.” When that happened my class and I would say “Oh no!”
However, whenever something good happened you would put on an upbeat happy song. Then my class would go “Yeah!” That was really smart.
Throughout the documentary I noticed very detailed facts that not many people would know. For example, I remember in the first episode you talked about Priscilla. You dug really deeply and told me some REALLY detailed things. I knew NOTHING about her until you told me in Many Rivers to Cross!
You really opened my eyes. It always seemed pretty straightforward, and horrifying. Early African American history was the story of thousands of Africans who were captured, shipped like cargo to the new world and sold into slavery, mostly to work and die on southern plantations.
Although, you, Henry Louis Gates Jr. showed me history’s complexity in your BEAUTIFULLY done documentary.
Mr. Gates you are a Harvard professor, author, and critic! That is why you did a fabulous job interviewing so many people! You talked to historians, elders who remember they’re rich history. You chatted over iced tea and nice walks where shameful history unfolded.
Everyone (I hope) knows that slavery existed at least as long ago as ancient Egypt. Many are also aware that Africans helped the white slave traders who arrived on their shores. Episode 1(The Black Atlantic: 1500-1800) delves deeper. The Temme people would sell the Loko people, so they didn’t see it as turning against their own. This points out that Europeans invented the idea that skin color determined who was and was not enslavable.
Episode 2(The Age of Slavery: 1800-1860) shows how black lives changed because of the American Revolution. I learned about Eli Whitney’s cotton machine. I met courageous individuals, such as Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen, and Frederick Douglass. I could continue to talk about each of the amazing episodes but there’s something I just LOVED about your documentary!
The artwork! Striking artwork is used to illustrate the early years. Inspiring stories of brave men, women, and children introduced me to Harry Washington, one of George Washington’s many slaves who ran away from Mount Vernon and joined the British Army.
Another thing that I loved was all the quotes. Things like “Could 500 years of racism be erased by the election of one man?” were so, deep!
One thing that really stood out to me was learning about Jim Crow. At first when I heard that name I thought “Jim Crow” was a REAL PERSON! A real, mean, crazy person.
When I heard they “killed” Jim Crow, I thought they had actually murdered him! Though I then realized it was a law. A brutal, dumb law. Although, that meant it was enforced! People were being made to do this horrible thing!
After seeing your documentary, I was changed. It shows the difference between saying “There’s a black man at the door” and saying “There’s a man at the door.” Only one is right, and it’s NOT the first one.
Gabrielle Mollin
