Plantation System in Southern Life

Produced: 1950

Length: 10 Minutes

This astonishing historical film educates the audience about the old plantation system in the South, but does so in a revealing way that exposes the racist attitudes and the remnants of slavery in the South. At the beginning of the film, a white family takes one of many available old plantation tours and learns about the layout of the plantation, including the main house, the surrounding fields, and the slave quarters where blacksmiths, carpenters, and field hands worked and lived. The echoes of slavery are ever present, as these were certain slave plantations during black slavery. After viewing the old plantation house, the tourists go around the countryside by car, observing the South in the 1950s. The footage captures images of black tenet farmers working in the cotton fields and at their houses which differ little from the old slave quarters. This demonstrates how southern segregation had hardly ceased. In the end, a group of well-dressed whites are shown at an outdoor party, while the narrator says, Today, if we visit a social gathering in the South, well see some of these things. The gentle manners and courtesy. The separation of society into distinct groups. And the relationship of that society to the land, which supplies its wealth. These are some of the things the plantation system has contributed to Southern life. This is a fascinating and absorbing film due to its antiquated position on African American slavery and slave plantation homes.