My uncle never took my brother and I to the movies.

He took us everywhere but to the movies.

We went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see Alex Haley, the author of Roots,

and to Yankee Stadium to see South African Freedom Fighter Nelson Mandela

on his first trip to the U.S. after being released from prison.

But he never, ever took us to the movies.

So when my parents told us he planned on taking us to see a movie, I knew immediately we

wouldn't be seeing the latest installment of Indiana Jones. And I was right. Glory. My uncle was

taking us to see Glory. It was 1989 and just between you and I, when I heard we

were going to see a Civil War movie, I was like, what the hell? In my infinite 16-year-old wisdom,

I could think of a thousand things I'd rather do than trek up to Harlem to watch a Civil

War movie. But I really had no choice in the matter. My parents' house. My parents' rules.

And it wasn't just my brother and I. My uncle had gathered a half dozen sons and daughters

of his friends

to watch the movie too.

And by the looks on their faces before the movie started, I could see I wasn't the only

one thinking, what am I doing here?

But by the time the movie ended, the point of the outing was clear.

My uncle wanted us, a group of black teenagers growing up in New York City in the 1980s,

to see African Americans fighting for their freedom in the 1860s.

I remember him explaining to us afterward that freedom wasn't just given to black people,

handed to them happily by Abraham Lincoln, black people

...