Courageous ancestors: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Thea Bowman honored with new films
By Ralph E. Moore Jr.,
Special to the AFRO
As more true history is being uncovered these days, we can happily enjoy three recently created documentaries about three powerful women who made a tremendous difference in the lives of so many. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Sister Thea Bowman were caring, courageous and visionary women who challenged the status quo and inspired so many– then and now. That is why these newly released documentaries are so important in these times.
“Harriet Tubman-Visions of Freedom” was directed and produced by Oscar nominated Black filmmaker, Stanley Nelson (Freedom Riders, Black Panthers, Attica and other great Starlight Media Productions). Harriet’s fascinating story is told from beginning to end. Nelson clarifies a few things about her that might be misunderstood during the telling of her story over the years.
Harriet Tubman did not start the Underground Railroad. The network of folks who successfully hid the enslaved escaping across the country to freedom was already in place already when Tubman became the most famous conductor of the Railroad. Little may know or long remember that Harriet Tubman led 70 persons from their enslaved lives. Some think she led hundreds, others believe she helped fewer than 70. Stanley Nelson’s documentary states 70 she saved– and I believe him.
Of Harriet’s life-changing vision and mission Nelson says, “It took a lot of planning, it took a lot of knowledge, it took leadership, and she was an incredible human being. We wanted to give that sense of Harriet Tubman.” I heard him speak recently at a preview of “Harriet Tubman-Visions of Freedom” at Maryland Public Television. He is an impressive, serious researcher and creative artist.
The quiet engrossing documentary is co-directed and co-produced by Nelson and Nicole London. He serves as executive producer with Lynne Robinson. It is a visually attractive film with an equally appealing and astutely compatible soundtrack.
“Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom” streamed simultaneously with last month’s broadcast and may be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video app, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. Call Maryland Public Television at 410-356-5600 for information about future viewing times for “Harriet Tubman-Visions of Freedom.”
A final thought from Stanley Nelson on the complications of making the documentary about Harriet versus his other works: “It felt a little bit different. It’s harder. It’s harder to look back at the 19th century, where you don’t have witnesses. And you have no archival footage that you can use. But we felt from the very beginning that there’s a way to do it, that there’s a way to tell their stories. And they’re important stories, so let’s figure out how to tell them.
And I think, in some ways, that’s kind of a new thing.”
The second powerful documentary being released soon tells us there was much more to Rosa Parks’s life than her initiation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in December of 1955. She was an activist and NAACP organizer over a decade earlier and she continued her energy for justice work until the day she died in 2005 at age 92. Now, the streaming service, Peacock, will feature Rosa’s story on a small screen near you on Oct. 19.
The documentary is brought to us all by news anchor, talk show host and current executive producer of “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks,” Soledad O’Brien and her company, Soledad O’Brien Productions. The documentary is based on Jeanne Theoharis’ 2013 best-selling biography of the same name. Like the book, it promises to inform us and clarify Rosa Parks for us.
From the Theoharis biography we learn surprisingly that Rosa Parks was a bigger fan of Malcolm X than she was of Martin Luther King. They met and talked a few times after their first encounter.
Too few know that Rosa Parks was a sexual assault investigator who now famously went to Abbeville, Alabama to seek justice for then 24-year-old Recy Taylor, a black sharecropping woman, who was raped by six white men in 1944. Taylor spoke up, Parks organized and publicized the case and although the justice system failed her, the story got out.
Some called Rosa Parks militant in her day. But school children think she refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus because her feet were tired. No, she was tired of injustice and once again decided to do something about it.
“It’s rare to get beneath the surface of a celebrated American icon and find something even more impressive behind it,” added award-winning directors Yoruba Richen and Johanna Hamilton. “It is a story that elevates the work of the women who were the heartbeat of the civil rights struggle and has far greater lessons on how we might work for social justice today.”
Thank you, Mrs. O’Brien, for this documentary on the life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. It’ll be an eye-opener for many viewers, without a doubt!
Last but not least, there is a new documentary just released for television viewing from NewGroup Media and the Diocese of Jackson, Miss. called, “Going Home Like a Shooting Star: Thea Bowman’s Journey to Sainthood.” The documentary is the life story of Sister Thea Bowman, an African American Catholic Franciscan Sister (1937-1990).
Bowman was known for showing everyday African Americans how to be persons of color and Catholic at the same time. And she even took her awareness of the gifts of Blackness to the Catholic bishops’ meeting of her time.
She was quite the bold “true truth” teller, borrowing that phrase from abolitionist Sojourner Truth. She spoke it to the powerful and the faithful. She sang gospel songs in church, clapped with joy during Mass and she taught priests how to preach effectively. Thea Bowman was quite a phenomenon who endured racism and sexism in her own church. And yet, with her eyes on the prize, she kept the faith and helped to spread it around.
She was bold and charismatic, kind but hard-hitting against racism. She was an educator in the truest sense of the word: a leader. That is why she is one of the six African-American candidates from the U.S. currently being recommended for immediate canonization.
When you watch the documentary, you will learn that singer-actor-activist Harry Belafonte once tried to make a motion picture of Sister Thea’s life. His plan was to feature actress Whoopi Goldberg as Sister. Hollywood was not quite ready for such a film so it was never made. But Goldberg starred as a Black nun in Sister Act, Sister Act 2 and Sister Act 3. Kind of ironic, huh?
Thea Bowman died of breast cancer at age 52. She is buried in her beloved city, Memphis, Tenn. She was born in Mississippi.
The film is filled with comments and quotes from so many who knew her including Father Maurice Nutt, a Black Catholic priest, who was taught in school by Sister Thea and who inspired him to become a priest. He now leads her cause for sainthood through “the process.”
Please call ABC TV 2 (410-377-2222) here in Baltimore to ask when the film, “Like A Shooting Star” will be shown on television on Channel 2 in our area. I’ve seen it and I loved it.
The three magnificent documentaries about these three exceptional leaders should be shown in schools, colleges and churches everywhere. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Sister Thea Bowman have inspire so many and changed lives for the better through their work.
You will learn new things about them in these films. Please watch and enjoy them all!
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