Pastor C.L. Bryant got in big trouble. His church fired him as pastor. The NAACP stripped him of his position as Chapter President. Did he steal funds? Engage in immoral behavior? Run naked down Main Street? Worse! He joined the Tea Party.
His story is told in the new film “Runaway Slave”, directed by Pritchett Cotten, 
which premiered January 13 in Los Angeles, with an opening around the country coinciding with the Martin Luther King Day weekend. The film was produced by Luke Livingston and Beverly Zaslow and funded by Matt Kibbe’s Freedom Works Foundation. The intense editing was done by Matthew Perdie.
Bryant explains, “I was once a black radical. I was sold out to the cause. But my personal faith and convictions caused the NAACP to strip me of my title for reasons you’ll hear in the movie. It was then that my eyes opened to the
oppression of our government on the black community, and I became a conservative at home and in the ballot box. My involvement with the Tea Party put my name on a national stage and allowed this project to take flight.”
The film takes viewers on a journey with Bryant across the country that traces the footsteps of runaway slaves who escaped along routes that became known as the Underground Railroad. He travels into the heart of black communities across the U.S. along a new Underground Railroad. He meets with community organizers, demonstrators, prominent activists and ordinary people trying to solve problems in their communities. He asks “Are we truly ‘Free at last?’”.
There is a segment in the film where he asks, or tries to ask, this question to prominent civil rights leaders. Their answers illuminate the problem of slavery to 
the welfare state. The sequence in which Al Sharpton avoids answering the question is classic.
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Article comments
1 - dicentra
Even as a college history major, I didn’t realize
No, it's BECAUSE you were a college history major. You think a COLLEGE would teach the truth about civil rights? You think they'd give Republicans a scintilla of credit?
2 - LeoOfMars
dicentra, you're right. Actually, I started as a poli-sci major, but got bad grades when I gave conservative answers. The history department was dominated by Marxists, but they at least didn't punish you for disagreeing, like the liberals did, if you had your facts straight.
3 - Marilyn
How sad that the people who are becoming what their ancestors would have been so pleased with are being shut down. Are continuing to be enslaved needlessly and as much at the hands of the NAACP as anyone.
4 - mgb
actually, the US president responsible for desegregating the US military was Harry Truman in 1948. maybe that's why you didn't learn that it was Eisenhower, who did engage in desegregating schools in the south.
5 - Igor
Eisenhower sent troops into Little Rock in 1957 to enforce the Supreme Court decision that Separate But Equal was an inherent failure and that schools could not be segregated.
As an Eisenhower 'Modern' Republican I supported Ike, as it was my belief at that time that the Republican Party was the best hope for Blacks, women, outdoorsmen (hunters, fishers, hikers, etc., like me) because it seemed to be the most attuned to Ideals of the Founders and with the most available intellectual space to accommodate diversity. Alas, the party moved so far to the right in the ensuing decades that it left me without a party.
Clearly the Republican party has made no attempt to advance African-Americans as evidenced by their miserable record of sending AAs to congress (except for occasional tokens) and their regular appeasements with racists.
At the same time the Republican establishment regularly works against the interests of women, even conducting hearings on abortion and contraception peopled entirely by old men and forcibly excluding women.
Sadly, the Republican establishment turned it's back on the many sportsmen who had supported it when it sacrificed the interests of hunters and fishers, etc., to the interests of Big Business, and many of our fields and streams have been poisoned beyond redemption.
At the same time they have made a habit of parodying our very Constitution with twisted and contrived arguments designed to serve special interests.
The decline of the Republican Party since the Eisenhower era is a bitter disappointment to those of us who envisioned a better future for all Americans and who could not join the Democratic party.
The Republicans betrayed us and left no home for us. Many now vote democrat without registering as Dems.
6 - cap and trade a commie
This movie is great it's been a long time coming. it should be out in the theaters as much as Obama 2016 is. these kinds of movies should have been out 20 years ago. Democrats are tearing down traditional America that is there change.
7 - TS
Socialism is not a loss of freedom. It is everyone contributing to a system that benefits all, such as the police dept, fire dept, public education, the library. These are socialist programs, that haven't taken away any one's freedom. It is not about insuring the lazy are well cared for. It's about everyone having an opportunity. Everyone has a different start in life. Some have parents who will insure their children can go as far educationally as they desire. Others have parents who don't value education. I don't feel these children deserve any less opportunity. Also, the movie indicates more than once that to receive welfare, you cannot have a man in the home. This is blatantly false. I worked in welfare eligibility, and that is not a requirement for food stamps, medicaid, or cash assistance.
8 - LeoOfMars
"Some have parents who will insure their children can go as far educationally as they desire. Others have parents who don't value education. I don't feel these children deserve any less opportunity." How nice that you feel that way. Then you should use your money to help those children, not use the power of the state to steal the money from parents who thought providing for their children was important, to give it to those who didn't.
9 - TS
I don't feel that everyone contributing to a system that benefits society as a whole is "stealing".
10 - LeoOfMars
TS, the question becomes, where do you draw the line? "Contributing" is a good thing as it implies a voluntary action. When a tax is established by law to take someone's money, it is no longer a contribution.
11 - TS
If you are using the benefits created by tax funds (police, fire, public education, library, driving on the roads), then it seems reasonable to contribute to these things. I believe in keeping taxes low, but I feel that if we fail to contribute to the things that matter, we pay a higher price tax -wise in the end (welfare, incarceration, etc). I do make voluntary contributions, as well as mandatory taxes. I don't agree with everything my tax money is spent on. I do, however, feel that some things are very much worth, the taxes I pay.