HOME   About   Anthologies   Articles   Author Index   Bookstore   Bulletin Board   Chrono Checklist   Films   Intros   Juvenile   Mystery   Non-fiction   Novels   Pamphlets   Plays   Poetry   Reviews   Stories   Site Search   Texts   Title Index

Summary:
Muhammad Ali plays an emancipated slave fighting for civil rights in this 1979 TV-movie.
It's set after the Civil War on the sprawling Carwell plantation in rural South Carolina, the birthplace of an illiterate runaway named Gideon Jackson (Ali), who served as a Union soldier and has now come home. A self-effacing yet commanding man, Jackson earns the respect and trust of his Carwell peers, who elect him under Reconstruction law as a: delegate to rewrite the state constitution in Charleston.
There, the country bumpkin gets a lesson in politics and teaches himself to read and write. Both educations prove valuable to Gideon as he sets out on a hard-fought struggle against intolerance and injustice that's marked by an uphill battle to buy land - and an uneasy alliance with a neighboring. share-cropper (Kris Kristofferson).

Adapted from Howard Fast's novel.