A House Divided: Denmark Vesey's Rebellion

It's 1821 Charleston, South Carolina. Denmark Vessey (Yaphet Kotto) was brought to America as a child slave. He was able to buy his freedom but his woman and son remain slaves. He is a church leader and plans a slave revolt. Mr. Benjamin (Ned Beatty) is a local city leader advocating for restricting and banishing the freed blacks.

I don't know anything about Denmark and it's fascinating to discover real history. It also pains a compelling picture of a time and place. It's got good performances. This piece of history is new to me.

I imagine that back in the 80s and 90s this stiff, too talky, agressively undramatic film was shown with great frequency in South Carolina U. S. History classrooms. Nowadays, of course, a Palmetto State social studies teacher would be hauled before the MAGA/Anti Critical Race Theory school board for even uttering the name Denmark Vesey.

Scarcely an hour long, this treatment of Denmark Vesey's failed anti-enslavement uprising in Charleston, South Carolina is a masterful bit of historically-informed character work. A cross-section of free and enslaved Blacks, brought to three-dimensional life by legends like Kotto, Little, Peters, and the show-stealing Casey and Fargas, have no time to waste in their intellectual and emotional assault on the circumstances of post-Haitian Revolution Charleston. Their perspectives are diverse and complex yet perfectly clear, and the same is true of the perverse world they inhabit, all conveyed by screenwriter William Hauptman with the confidence of one who knows the material deeply enough to explain it simply. Not at all hurt by a made-for-TV budget, this is a finely-distilled example of history made immediate.

I like discovering new pieces of American history, the things we are not often told about in our history books. When I saw this, I thought this would be along the same vein as Alex Haley's "Roots" or Alex Haley's "Queen." While it does focus on Denmark Vesey and his role in the.slave revolt. It's unusual to watch a film through the eyes of a former slave who bought his freedom. He was a successful businessman and.an active church member. I feel like Denmark was a man ahead of the times.

I saw this movie on television about 30 years ago and I still remember it because of the impression it left on me. It is not that easy to find a complete definitive story on Denmark Vessey. There are disagreements among those who have written about him and much speculation because like Nat Turner, he caused fear and outrage among the status quo of his time. I heard that they forbade his name to be mentioned by slaves, after the rebellion, on threat of punishment. and it also must be remembered that this occurred not long after the Haitian revolution and some speculate that Vessey was inspired by it and intended to flee with the slave to Haiti. This movie seems to handle the topic well by focusing on what led to the rebellion and the aftermath.Also it stands in stark contrast to the stereotype of the docile, humiliated, obedient slave which most of us has seen portrayed in other features of the period. The movie was the first time I saw the African-American portrayed in the media as resistant to his human bondage as a group. To this day many of the people in Charleston S. C. don't even know his story, which is a shame. I cannot find this movie on DVD, but if I could it definitely would be in my collection. Yaphet Kotto gives a strong performance as Vessey. This is worth watching.