The Road Taken (1996)

Directed by

Selwyn Jacob

Genre

documentary

Country

Canada

Runtime

52 min

Rating

9.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary tells the story of Black Canadian sleeping car porters on railways from the early 1900s to the 1960s. It focuses on how racism kept them from promotions until porter Lee Williams fought the union and won a discrimination case in 1955.

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What happens

The Road Taken is a 1996 documentary about the experiences of Black Canadian sleeping car porters who worked on Canada's railways from the early 1900s through the 1960s. Directed by Selwyn Jacob and written and narrated by Frederick Ward, the film explores how racism prevented Blacks from being promoted, until porter Lee Williams took his fight to the union in 1955 and successfully claimed discrimination under Canada's Fair Employment Practices Act. The film features the music of jazz musician Joe Sealy, whose father was a porter. Coproduced by Jacobs with the National Film Board of Canada, the film received the Canada Award in 1998 from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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