The Floodgates Open
11 March 2011 | Share:
This is the pilot film of the 7-part documentary “Philadelphia: The Great Experiment” being produced by History Making Productions. The half-hour film, which centers on the fight for civil rights in the immediate post-Civil War period, will air in Philadelphia on 6ABC, April 26 at 7:30PM. The story is told through interviews with experts, including Chris Matthews of MSNBC and journalist Juan Williams, and dramatic interpretation. Here are two short clips from the film.
At the end of the War, Philadelphia, which had been so crucial to the Union victory, boomed. As historian Shan Holt says in the film, “Anything was possible.” This film tracks the expanding possibilities, from the creation of the modern city to the campaign for equal rights. The campaign was led by the young teacher and activist Octavius Catto whose assassination foreshadows the coming violence of 20th century civil rights. Philadelphia, meanwhile, shrugs of infamy and depression and keeps on growing, staging the largest public gathering yet in US history, the 1876 World’s Fair.
I am the senior writer of “Philadelphia: The Great Experiment” and co-screenwriter of “The Floodgates Open.”
Read about the ideas that underlie our film in the Philadelphia Inquirer