The Black American History Series

Chronicling the history of African-Americans "from the sub-Saharan desert to the Million Man March," this 5-tape series combines less than mesmerizing voice-over narration with static images run through a special effects blender (photos, maps and drawings are flipped, rotated, spun, and bounced from corner to corner). I watched the second volume, Slavery, which charted the mercantile origins of the slave trade, the inexorable shift from indentured servitude to outright slavery in the U.S., the slave revolts, abolitionist movement, and--eventually--Civil War that brought about the emancipation of African-Americans. Aside from the distracting manipulation of the images, the images themselves are mostly unremarkable--often blurry, occasionally pointless, and sometimes, as in the case of a photograph shown during a comment on slave life in the 17th century, anachronistic. I also checked out the final volume, Modern History, where--since it covered people and events of the last quarter of the 20th century--I hoped to find the use of "film" referred to on the back of the video box. However, except for the coastline tracking shot that opens and closes each volume, I saw nothing but static images. A poor use of the video medium, this is not recommended. A much better choice here would be the PBS-aired Africans in America (VL-1/99). Aud: J, H, P. (R. Pitman)