Customer Reviews

Booker

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Since Up From Slavery has never been effectively made into an available movie, this is the next best thing. I am a high school teacher with a values-based educational model. After I teach the book, I love to show this little movie to my students. It really helps to make the book more "real" for them. The acting is wonderful and there are themes, even in so short a segment of Mr. Washington's life, that are well captured in the video. As for the length, it fits wonderfully into the class period without over-burdening the precious time with Hollywood fluff!

This is a sixty minute film about the childhood of Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute. It has some very dramatic parts involving discrimination that young children may not understand; but the acting is excellent with a cast including LeVar Burton and Shelley Duvall. It conveys a very important message about academic equality and basic human rights. The determination of Little Booker (Shavar Ross) eventually leads to a world of better opportunities for all Americans. You will cry, laugh, and cheer as you see Little Booker develop his sense of calling in this film.

BOOKER (1989)
directed by Stan Lathan
approx. 55 minutes

This is a very well done made-for-tv movie based on the early life of black educator Booker T. Washington, author of 'Up from Slavery'.

It starts out with young Booker living as a slave in Virginia. He wants to go to school with a white friend of his but is told he's not allowed to learn. Once The Union army arrives at the farm, he leaves with his family to live with his stepdad in West Virginia. Here he meets a black war veteran named Mr. Davis (played by Levar Burton of 'Star Trek' and 'Reading Rainbow' fame). Seeing Mr. Davis read a newsletter renews Booker's interest in getting an education for himself. However the family is short on money and his stepfather believes that Booker working at a furnace will better serve the family. Booker persists and is given a Blue Back speller book in order to learn letters and syllables. His stepdad realizes the "value" of education when his young son, using simple addition, finds out that the boss at the furnace hasn't been giving the family their promised wages. Booker secures a job with a former schoolteacher where he has access to a large library to feed his enthusiasm for education.

This movie also picks up on some aspects that are non-specific to Booker's story, such as the patronizing attitude of some Northerners towards newly freed slaves and the internalization of hateful stereotypes by some blacks.

Director Stan Lathan is perhaps best known to hip hop fans as the man behind 'BEAT STREET'! He also has done a lot of TV shows such as "The Steve Harvey Show" and the Def Comedy/Poetry "Jams".

I rented the VHS for this from my local library. I was excited to watch a movie about Booker T. Washington and seeing that is was from Featured Films for Familys, I was sure it would be clean. I was disappointed in the length of the film as it turned out to be about an hour long and only covered a year of Booker's boyhood right after the end of the Civil War. The acting was pretty good though but I wished it was longer.