Africans in America
PBS Special Series
Sponsored by Fannie Mae Foundation
 The
Fannie Mae Foundation has announced sponsorship of the PBS series, AFRICANS
IN AMERICA: America's Journey Through Slavery, the
first comprehensive television history of the international events leading
to the growth of racial slavery in the United States. Expected to
draw more than 20 million viewers nationwide, the AFRICANS
IN AMERICA series, which is narrated by Angela Bassett,
 will
air Monday, October 19 through Thursday, October 22, 1988 at 8:0 p.m. (EST)
on PBS. The sponsorship is a part of the Fannie Mae Foundation's
expanded public education outreach efforts designed to reach African Americans.
Presented in four 90-minute episodes,
AFRICANS IN AMERICA will take viewers on a journey
from this country's earliest days as an English settlement, through its
war for independence, to its rise as an international economic power before
the Civil War. The series will show the dramatic impact of the struggle
over slavery and freedom in shaping our country.
AFRICANS IN AMERICA
is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston, and was filmed on location across twelve
states and three continents. You may order videocassettes of
the series by calling 800-255-9424. The episodes air as follows:
Episode I - Terrible Transformation
(1607-1750) on Monday, October 19, 1998
examines the origins of one of the
largest forced human migrations in recorded history. After the arrival
of the first Africans in Virginia, the British colonies lay the groundwork
for a system of racial slavery, which generates profits that ensure the
colonies' growth and survival. Producers: Orlando Bagwell and Susan Bellows
Episode II - Revolution
(1750-1805) on Tuesday, October 20, 1998
while the American colonies challenge
Britain for independence, American slavery is challenged from within as
men and women fight to define what America will be. When the War of Independence
is won, Black people, both enslaved and free, seize on the language of
freedom even while the new nation's Constitution codifies slavery and oppression
as a national way of life. Producer: Noland Walker
Episode III - Brotherly Love
(1781-1834) on Wednesday, October 21, 1998
explores the first fifty years of
the new nation. In Philadelphia, freedmen and fugitive slaves push
the country to live up to the promises made in its Constitution.
But with the invention of the cotton gin, slavery expands into America's
western frontier, and a revolution in Haiti inspires slave rebellions throughout
the southern United States.
Producer: Jacquie Jones
Episode IV - Judgment Day
(1831-1861) on Thursday, October 22, 1998
the nation expands westward; slavery
becomes the most divisive issue in American life. Abolitionists struggle
to bring the institution down, and the nation is tested as never before.
As tensions over slavery erupt into violence, Americans are forced to consider
how long the country can continue as a democracy built on the profits of
bondage. Producer: Llewellyn Smith
ORLANDO BAGWELL, Executive Producer
AFRICANS IN AMERICA:
America's Journey Through Slavery
 Bagwell
is founder and president of ROJA Productions, a Boston-based independent
film and television production company. He produced and directed for ROJA
Productions, with WETA, Washington DC, a ninety-minute film on the life
of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History
aired on PBS in November 1994. Bagwell also co-produced the critically
acclaimed feature-length documentary on the life of Malcolm X, Malcolm
X: Make It Plain, with Blackside, Inc. for PB S's The American Experience
in January 1994.
Creator of the Civil Rights Video
Wall, a permanent exhibit for the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance,
Bagwell also produced and directed "New Worlds, New Forms" for the international
WNET series, Dancing, for which he received an Emmy nomination. As executive
vice president for Blackside, Inc., he supervised documentary film projects
including the production of the national PBS series The Great Depression,
hailed by Newsweek magazine as "one of the best television events of 1993."
In addition, Bagwell produced two
films for Blackside's internationally celebrated Eyes on the Prize: "Mississippi:
Is This America?" and "Ain't Scared of Your Jails." Each was awarded the
Columbia School of Journalism's Alfred E. duPont Award and the Peabody
Award. Bagwell also produced and directed the award-winning film Roots
of Resistance: A Story if the Underground Railroad for The American Experience
and produced "Words That Wound" as part of the Declarations series for
the Independent Television Service.
As staff producer for the WGBH-produced
series Frontline, Bagwell co-produced and directed Running With Jesse,
a documentary account of the Jesse Jackson presidential campaign, and Racism
101, which addressed the issue of racism on college campuses.
Bagwell also has earned numerous
credits as a cinematographer, editor, director, and producer on many documentary
and dramatic films, including Wonderworks and National Geographic.
See Related Article:
Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery
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