I did not think there'd ever be a television documentary about the black experience to rival PBS' "Eyes on the Prize." But "The Promised Land," which starts tomorrow night at 9 on the Discovery cable channel, is at least in the same league.
It's impossible to talk about "Promised Land" without talking about "Eyes." They cover much of the same ground, but go about it in different ways.
Whereas "Eyes" followed the birth and early years of the civil rights movement in the South, "Promised Land" focuses on a few rural Mississippians, tracing their journey from the cotton fields they share-cropped north to the promised land of Chicago.
Using remarkable film footage, family photographs, music, the narration of Morgan Freeman and the sojourners' own words, the film also chronicles the flight from the strict Jim Crow laws of the South to the painful discovery of less-obvious -- but no less-punishing -- forms of discrimination in the North. The migration from South to North of 5 million blacks from the 1930s to the '70s was the largest peacetime migration in our history, according to the documentary, based on Nicholas Lemann's book of the same title.
But "The Promised Land" is more than just history. For all its details about racism, lynchings, helplessness and anger, it's also a lush document that testifies to the spiritual and emotional journey of the men and women whose lives it traces.
One of the most powerful techniques used by the BBC filmmakers involves showing old photos and film footage of blacks in the South. The initial response to such images -- at least for this white viewer -- is a generic, mainly impersonal one. But then the filmmakers show some of the people in the pictures as they are today, and you connect with them on an individual level.
In a few cases, the filmmakers accompany these people as they retrace their steps, returning to their birthplaces in the South. The connection here is a powerful and emotional one, as the music, pictures and words combine to make you care as you never imagined you would.
Even though the eye of the camera is an unflinching one in "Promised Land," this is ultimately an uplifting viewing experience. Yes, it is filled with evidence of a racist, segregated society, but the filmmakers mainly seem interested in capturing the remarkable strength and courage of black Southerners who came North with that most American of dreams -- a better life for them and their children.
Whereas "Eyes" concentrated on the legal challenges, the news headlines and the political maneuvering by previously disenfranchised blacks, "Promised Land" shows how these Americans, in moving North, changed the cultural landscape.
A large part of that cultural impact can be summed up in one word: music. The music here -- from Robert Johnson's version of "Sweet Home Chicago" to Terrence Trent D'Arby with Booker T. & the MGs doing Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" -- is used as well as I've ever heard it used in a television documentary.
There is one last point of comparison between "Promised Land" and "Eyes" that needs to be acknowledged. "Eyes" was mainly (( the work of a black filmmaker, Henry Hampton. Though black scholars were hired as consultants, "Promised Land" is primarily the work of white documentarians from Britain.
Being part of the subculture you are reporting on has both pluses and minuses, just as being outside of it does. But viewers will have to decide for themselves whether they think the filmmakers' race was a plus, minus or of no consequence here.
I say "The Promised Land " -- which continues Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights at 10 -- is the place to be for memorable TV.