It's shortly after the abolition of slavery and Black people all over the south seek greener pastures where they don't have to be subjected to Jim Crowism. Some would head west with a wagon master showing them the way. And sometimes the greedy white people of the south wouldn't want to let their labor go so they'd send night riders after them to bring them back.
Buck (Sidney Portier) is a wagon master leading a group west. The Preacher (Harry Belafonte) is an opportunistic shuckster who finds himself a part of the Buck-led wagon train. The two of them have to be heroes in a sense in order to get this wagon train west.
I really appreciate this movie being made in the 70's when so many blaxploitation films were made. Instead of pimps, hoes, hustlers, and drug dealers, this movie is about positive black male figures in a western. Besides the terrible movie, "Posse," with Mario Van Peebles, I hadn't seen a Black western. I liked the history this movie presented (however dramatized), what it stood for, and the actors in it. Yes, I have seen better westerns--meaning more entertaining--but I can't readily recall a more significant western.
Buck (Sidney Portier) is a wagon master leading a group west. The Preacher (Harry Belafonte) is an opportunistic shuckster who finds himself a part of the Buck-led wagon train. The two of them have to be heroes in a sense in order to get this wagon train west.
I really appreciate this movie being made in the 70's when so many blaxploitation films were made. Instead of pimps, hoes, hustlers, and drug dealers, this movie is about positive black male figures in a western. Besides the terrible movie, "Posse," with Mario Van Peebles, I hadn't seen a Black western. I liked the history this movie presented (however dramatized), what it stood for, and the actors in it. Yes, I have seen better westerns--meaning more entertaining--but I can't readily recall a more significant western.