It's pretty hard to tell the story of black NFL players in only 44 minutes, and Breaking Racial Barriers seems a bit short - though the DVD contains quite a bit of bonus material about prominent African-American players. (I was especially pleased to see a piece about Randall Cunningham, arguably the most exciting quarterback of his generation.) The NFL Films footage, as usual, is outstanding.
Breaking Racial Barriers, to its credit, doesn't gloss over some of the uglier incidents in the NFL's storied history. The Washington Redskins, for example, remained an all-white team until 1962, and only integrated itself - with great reluctance - after consecutive one-win seasons. But the film implies that race is hardly an issue at all in today's NFL - when, in fact, racial controversies fire up with depressing regularity. The National Football League has certainly come a long way, but every barrier hasn't been broken just yet.
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