African American Lives 2

DVD Review

Paramount

PBS Home Video

Release: May 6, 2008

Back in 2006, Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. served as co-producer and host for a new PBS series called African American Lives. What the series did, which is extremely interesting, is it used resources and DNA testing to trace the history of many highly-notable African Americans such as Morgan Freeman, Tina Turner, and others.

The second series has now been released on DVD featuring the likes of Bliss Broyard, Linda Johnson Rice, Don Cheadle, Chris Rock, Tom Joyner, Peter Gomes, Kathleen Henderson, Tina Turner, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Morgan Freeman, and Maya Angelou.

The DVD is split up into four parts with it opening up with The Road Home. This looks at the ancestors of these notable figures, followed by A Way Out fo Now Way, which looks back even further into the 1800s and the Civil War.

From here, you are brought to We Come from People, which tells of the stories of all of their ancestors during the early years of the United States, followed by The Past Is Another Century, which looks at the actual DNA analysis, and how everything matches up.

Dr. Gates does a great job in this DVD to really put forth some pretty incredible information. The entire presentation is a bit bland at times, but the interesting nature of all of the facts will keep those fascinated a great deal throughout.

There are also some pretty amazing revelations as to how each of these people has Native American and white ancestors as well.

PBS has done a great job with this series to provide for quite an interesting educational lesson for those who love history and things such as this.

The video and audio quality are average-enough and do a good job of presenting everything it its proper form. The DVD is in widescreen ,with the audio in English 5.1 surround.

The DVD itself is a great buy for those who want some educational background on your favorite African-American stars of today. A good buy for history buffs to say the least.

Film: 8.0

Though it is a bit bland at times, the facts are quite fascinating.

Video: 7.0

Very standard, but good enough.

Audio: 7.0

Same as the video, very average.

Special Features: N/A

Final Score: 7.5