It’s no secret that we are living in one of the most divisive, chaotic, confusing periods in American history. Since the 2016 election, partisanship seems to be at an all-time high, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. This doesn’t mean that all hope is lost, however. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author Jon Meacham believes that we can confront some of our more contemporary evils by examining America’s past. If we don’t arm ourselves with some understanding of the complexity of our own history, we’re doomed to fail in saving this country. And this complex history is exactly what Meacham dives into over the course of The Soul of America‘s 1 hour and 17 minute runtime.
While we get many clips of Meacham at various speaking engagements and insight about his upbringing and spirit from people close to him, the real heart of the documentary lies with the brief but thorough dives into specific historical periods. There’s the discussion of just how brazen the Ku Klux Klan once was, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in the 1920s, an eerie mirroring of the horrifying events in Charlottesville just a few years ago. Women’s suffrage and their fight for the right to vote is also explored – and it’s made clear that this fight wasn’t for all women, just white women – and this is an issue that remains today, some 100 years later.
The parallels go on and on; the Japanese internment camps of the 1940s with children in detention centers today, the sensationalized headlines and fake news of McCarthy with our current administration (Meacham jokes that Senator McCarthy would have loved Twitter), to name just a couple. Above all, Meacham believes that we have the most to learn from the Civil Rights Movement and the unrelenting fight and collaborations that made it successful. With the help of fellow historians, authors, activists, and renowned names like John Lewis and George Takei, Meacham makes the case for America’s redemption and what it might take for us to make a better world for everyone.
(via Decider)
Stream on HBO Max: http://itsh.bo/hbo-max
