WONDERWORKS: BOOKER {SERIES PREMIERE} (TV)
Summary
One in this series of programs featuring adaptations of classic children's stories. This program depicts the childhood of African-American educator Booker T. Washington, who founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881. Born into slavery, Washington is only a boy when this form of oppression is abolished in the United States during the Civil War. Denied a chance to be educated as a slave, the eager Washington must overcome many other obstacles to education once he attains freedom. Initially he faces the opposition of his stepfather, who wants him to work in a salt furnace rather than study. At the urging of his wife and a local schoolteacher, however, the boy's stepfather eventually relents and allows him to attend school as long as he can maintain a rigorous work schedule. When he uses his newly acquired knowledge to stop the plant manager from cheating his illiterate stepfather from his fair wages, Booker is asked not to return to the furnace. The boy finds a new job, however, which advances his education: he is employed to work around the house of a local former schoolteacher who has a difficult personality, but who further nurtures his appetite for knowledge. Acquisition and cataloging of this program was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS WNET New York, NY
- DATE: October 1, 1984 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:58:03
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:13663
- GENRE: Children's; Drama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Blacks - History; Children's programs; Drama, historical recreation; African-American Collection - Drama
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1984-1990
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Lee Polk … Executive Producer
- Avon Kirkland … Executive Producer, Writer
- Whitney Green … Producer
- Stan Lathan … Director
- Charles Johnson … Writer
- John Allman … Writer
- Webster Lewis … Music by
- James Bond III … Cast, John
- LeVar Burton … Cast, William Davis
- Shelley Duvall … Cast, Laura Burroughs
- Marian Mercer … Cast, Mrs. Ruffner
- C.C.H. Pounder … Cast, Jane
- Rasulala, Thalmus (See also: Crowder, Jack) … Cast, Wash
- Shavar Ross … Cast, Booker
- Tony Haney … Cast, Monroe
- Judge Reinhold … Cast, Newt Burroughs
- Mel Stewart … Cast, the Reverend Rice
- Marilyn Coleman … Cast, Sophia
- Julius Harris … Cast, Lee
- Doreen Lang … Cast, Eliza Burroughs
- Fred Edmondson … Cast, the Man in the Crowd
- Rick Artis … Cast, a Patroller
- Darris Earhart … Cast, a Patroller
- Mick Olsen … Cast, a Patroller
- Jim Clapp … Cast, a Yankee Soldier
- Paul Cox … Cast, a Yankee Soldier
- Lidia Johnson … Cast, Emily
- Leon Litwack … Cast, the Shopkeeper
- Don DeFina … Cast, the Barber
- Jim Haynie … Cast, Wheeler
- Henry Travers … Cast, the Honest White Man
- Doraya Walker … Cast, the Black Man's Daughter
- Malomba Anderson … Cast, a Runaway Slave
- Jenae Beverly … Cast, Amanda
- Tom Dahlgren … Cast, General Ruffner
- Denny Delk … Cast, a Yankee Soldier
- Hank Ross … Cast, the Black Man on Road
- Light Silver … Cast, Abe Burroughs
- Melvina Smedley … Cast, Beatrice Peters
- Winston Young … Cast, the Man at Blacksmith Shop
- Booker T. Washington