“African-American Lives 2,” a four-part series on PBS that begins on Wednesday night, belies its sleepy name with the poetry of history, the magic of science and the allure of the family trees of Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Tina Turner, Don Cheadle, Tom Joyner and Maya Angelou. “I conceived of these series as roots in a test tube,” Professor Gates says early in “Lives,” which will be broadcast on most PBS stations in two hourlong episodes on Wednesday and two on Feb. 13. Through the prism of the individual stories of rapes of black women, the failed promise of Reconstruction, the great migration of black Southerners to the North, the struggle for education, land, and freedom, Professor Gates lays bare the basic contradiction of the American dream. Mr. Rock can be seen wiping away a tear after learning that his great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, served in the South Carolina Legislature, and died owning dozens of acres of land. He never knew any of that history, Mr. Rock says in the program. He recounts growing up in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood and being bused to a white school where he was bullied. “Until I lucked into a comedy club at, you know, age 20, just on a whim, I assumed I would pick up things for white people for the rest of my life,” Mr. Rock says. “If I’d known this, it would have taken away the inevitability that I was going to be nothing.”
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 02:21:03 +0000
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