The Promise of America

On Mother's Day in the year 2000, over 750,000 “mothers and others” marched from Washington D.C.'s National Mall to the Capitol to demand common-sense gun control laws. Janet Fitch and Brad Pruitt's The Promise of America follows a group of women as they travel by bus to Washington (some have lost family members to gun violence, while others are simply tired of the situation) and prepare for the march. Intercutting archival footage from the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, the program also features commentary from scholars, who are—unfortunately—not identified onscreen until the end of the production. Given the fact that this educational package features a 35-minute bonus disc version for classroom use, it's somewhat inexcusable that America's premier women's historian, Gerda Lerner, remains anonymous for most of the program's run time—along with other experts, including Philip Alpers, from Harvard's School of Public Health, who discusses gun violence in terms of a health crisis that has taxpayer consequences. Although nicely done otherwise, this Telly award-winner is also rather disappointing in that there's no follow-up on what has (or hasn't) been accomplished in the five years since the event. Optional. [Note: the filmmakers' Dear Rita, a companion documentary on gun violence, is also newly available.] Aud: H, C, P. (R. Reagan)