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Martijn Blekendaal and Finbarr Wilbrink travel along the Underground Railroad, the underground network that helped thousands of enslaved people escape to freedom. They ask themselves: How does the past of slavery impact contemporary life in America?
2024
Martijn and Finbarr end up in the swamps of Louisiana, where enslaved people were helped by natives to escape. They meet Mardi Gras Indians, 'black natives'. These used to be street gangs that attacked each other, but now it's about who makes the most beautiful costumes. Angola Prison used to be a cotton plantation where enslaved people worked, but now prisoners work there. During the rodeo, the doors open to the public and everyone can see how young black inmates throw themselves in front of mad bulls in the hope of earning a few bucks. What is freedom when so many black people are imprisoned, often for decades?
Martijn Blekendaal and Finbarr Wilbrink visit two former slave plantations. Finbarr goes to Oak Valley, which is a model for the romantic South and on which the film Gone with the Wind is based. Martijn goes to the Whitney Plantation, now a slavery museum where the story of oppression and exploitation is in stark contrast to the luxury and romance of Oak Valley. They end up in the magical location of Africatown, in the middle of a heavily polluted industrial area. This is where the descendants of the enslaved who came from the Clotilde, the last slave ship to arrive in America, live.
Atlanta, the city of Martin Luther King. Is his fight for equal civil rights over? Martijn and Finbarr attend a service at the Vision Church. There they meet LGBTQ+ activist Tracey, who fights for the civil rights of trans people. In Jackson, Mississippi, they investigate the role of the Freedom Riders, a group of white and black students who traveled through the southern US on buses in the 1960s to combat racial segregation. They were dispersed with brute force. A generation ago, the Klu Klux Klan marched through the black neighborhoods of Selma, Alabama. What are the relations between black and white now?
Faith keeps you going. Or not? During Thanksgiving, Martijn and Finbarr meet blues legend Lucious Spiller, who performs Walk With Me Lord. They meet Christian fundamentalists, but also people who have completely abandoned their faith. The legacy of African religious expressions has led to a new form of spirituality: American hoodoo. Martijn and Fin attend a hoodoo meeting in New Orleans, where a group of women help each other heal the trauma and pain of their ancestors. And so they end up at a secret meeting of doulas, who give advice to pregnant women, including about abortion.
Violence dominates life, especially in poor, black neighborhoods. Martijn and Finbarr are in 'murder capital' Memphis. Here they follow a group of bounty hunters who try to arrest people because they still have outstanding sentences and fines. Martijn and Finbarr have an awkward conversation with the McCloskys, a deeply conservative lawyer couple who chased Black Lives demonstrators from their front yard with automatic weapons. In Fergusson they join a police patrol led by a black police officer. They meet a man who was stopped and treated racist so many times that he decided to join the police.
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Martijn Blekendaal
Self
Finbarr Wilbrink
Self
