Ken Burns a renowned documentary film maker uses his years of research and scholarship to give viewers an unbiased version of history through the use of his various primary sources stated throughout him. He discusses the current problems that America is facing today on the issues of race in the following two videos: “Charleston Shooting a Chance to Reexamine History”, and “150 years after the Civil War, America is Not Post Racial”. Despite these videos appearing to be on entirely different issues to the American public, Ken Burns brings up the argument in both videos, of Americas’ continual issues with race and misinterpretations of history since the Civil War era.
The first video, “Charleston Shooting a Chance to Reexamine History”, brings …show more content…
A poll revealed that most Americans today believe the initial cause of the war was due to states’ rights versus federal rights, cultural differences between the north and the south, but once again not slavery. Ken Burns explains that generations have grown up with symbols of the civil war that misinterpreted the actual occurrences of the civil war. Popular films such as Gone with the Win, and Birth of a Nation both involve the civil war, but change the way viewers perceive the actual war. For example in both of those civil war movies the Klu Klux Klan is portrayed not as a homegrown terrorist organization but as a force of heroism throughout the civil war. Ken Burns said he was not surprised by the vast opinion of the nation on the civil war, as he believed films such as those, portrayed and sold their own version of the civil war. Ken Burns goes on to argue the actual cause of the civil war lied heavily on the issue of slavery. He described how the first state to secede from the union was South Carolina in reaction to the election of Abraham Lincoln. Only slavery was mentioned and nothing else in South Carolina’s secession letter. Burns’ does agree that there were more complex reasons behind the cause of the civil war; however, he stands by his statement that the war was mainly
The first video, “Charleston Shooting a Chance to Reexamine History”, brings …show more content…
A poll revealed that most Americans today believe the initial cause of the war was due to states’ rights versus federal rights, cultural differences between the north and the south, but once again not slavery. Ken Burns explains that generations have grown up with symbols of the civil war that misinterpreted the actual occurrences of the civil war. Popular films such as Gone with the Win, and Birth of a Nation both involve the civil war, but change the way viewers perceive the actual war. For example in both of those civil war movies the Klu Klux Klan is portrayed not as a homegrown terrorist organization but as a force of heroism throughout the civil war. Ken Burns said he was not surprised by the vast opinion of the nation on the civil war, as he believed films such as those, portrayed and sold their own version of the civil war. Ken Burns goes on to argue the actual cause of the civil war lied heavily on the issue of slavery. He described how the first state to secede from the union was South Carolina in reaction to the election of Abraham Lincoln. Only slavery was mentioned and nothing else in South Carolina’s secession letter. Burns’ does agree that there were more complex reasons behind the cause of the civil war; however, he stands by his statement that the war was mainly