The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman [VHS]
This 1973 television movie about 110 years of American history as seen through the eyes of a black woman from Louisiana (Cicely Tyson) is a terrific achievement, a window onto racism from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. Tyson gives a career performance as the title character, whose personal life is inextricably woven into the fabric of the African American struggle for equality. A mixture of the sentimental and the unflinching, this is the kind of educational experience that fully engages a viewer.--Tom Keogh