'Black History is American History'

Morgan Freeman on his new documentary about the first Black tank unit to serve in combat in World War II and the gaps in our national memory

- By Morgan Freeman

Early in my teenage years, when movies and books were pretty much my life, it began to occur to me that what was missing from these experiences was depictions of me as a person. When Sidney Poitier came along, I began to feel better about movies. However, there was nothing historical that challenged the status quo.

When I was called to talk about acting in the 1989 movie Glory, I almost blew my top. It showed the country in a state of civil war, fighting against itself and ultimately needing every able-bodied man, hence forming companies like the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the Union Army's first Black regiments of the conflict.

I was so excited about the idea of doing this kind of story, and after we had done it-filmed it and shown it-I had people tell me that they wept, literally wept, because they never knew anything like this had occurred in American history.

I was proud to be involved in that; it was like a spur, a juice. There's more. There's so much more history people do not know about. So let's keep going. I thought: if you get any way to do it, do it. Go ahead. That can be your aim in life, to expose as much of American history that involves me as possible.

Sent Into Battle