HISTORY: America - Our Defining Hours

If you have HULU, a streaming service, or if you have a subscription to the History Channel, I urge you to watch AMERICA: Our Definihg Hours. What a great series. It is in three parts and begins with the Revolution. I never watch tv during the day - never have. But today, I was so excited by this series which I began to watch lat night, that in place of my afternoon reading time, I decided to tune it again for part 3 which covers the first half of the twentieth Century.

As a devoted follower and reader and learner in HISTORY, I am well aware of the mythical plot pattern where all is almost lost and the hero emerges from the people to lead them to safety and they survive. One of my favorite all time foreign films was PATHFINDER and Icelandic saga. It follows the same theme. I couldn't help but produce a tear for the heroes of our own most dangerous times: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. To think of the nobility of purpose the daring, the selfless devotion, the wide ranging intellectual accompishment and the huility of being able to get the necessary help from others which made it possible for these heroes to bring us back from the depths.

They aren't the only heroes, needless to say, all the brave and selfless heroes on other strata of accomplishemnt who led the people from despair to victory ar the sacrifice of their own lives are also always present in my heart and mind, Clara Barton, Margaret Sanger, Alice Paul, Harriet Tubbman, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavesz, Dolores Huerta, Joe Hill and so many many others up and down the social scale.

But my point is, if you haven't seen this, please watch it and if you have seen it, it may be worthwhile to watch it again! I have revisited many programs and leanrned a great deal the second time around, for example, with TURN!, the Revlutionary spy series. The first time I watched it, on my tv, I could barely make it out in the murky color of it, and I had a lot of trouble with my hearing, but when I watched it again, through a treaming service (I think it was amazon) I could really see it and hear it and enjoy it.

It appears I spoke too soon, or perhaps I spoke before I could make an informed critique because I have just gotten to the near end of the series and they sckip right from Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement to the 911 bombing and once again the Women's Movement is entirely ignored. It happned and it affected half the entire population of the United States!!! Half the people in this coutry couldn't vote until 1919. Half of us paid taxes without representation until 1919, and half the population of this country suffered discrimination in every walk of life until the Women's Movement and yet both the Suffrage movement and the Women's Civil Rights Movement of the 1970's are ignored by this series. Our Civil Rights matter too, and our gatherings of 200,000 are as important as the gathering of any other civil rights groups, or labor groups. I am so disappointed at this omission. It ruined this series for me.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com