Amend: A Docuseries on Netflix. Excellent series, in my opinion. Watch if you can.

[Solly Mack]

‘Amend’: Netflix Documentary Series Is an Invitation to Participate in American History

The subtitle for “Amend,” the new Netflix documentary series, is “The Fight for America.” It’s an apt description in many ways, both in the evolution of the U.S. Constitution that the six-part season describes — and in how those advances are understood in the present day.

Below link is for the full article and not just highlights like the above excerpt and link.

Full Article for ‘Amend’: Netflix Documentary Series Is an Invitation to Participate in American History.

From the Guardian

'We're all part of the story': behind Will Smith's 14th amendment docuseries


Chances are it is the most influential amendment to the US constitution that you aren’t familiar with. Given its impact, it is astonishing how little the 14th amendment is discussed in public life. Americans can’t rattle it off like the first and second amendments – but its words have fundamentally shaped the modern definition of US citizenship and the principles of equality and freedom entitled to those within the country’s borders.

Sitting at the crux of these key ideals, the 14th amendment is cited in more litigation than any other, including some of the US supreme court’s most well-known cases: Plessy v Ferguson, Brown v Board of Education, Loving v Virginia, Roe v Wade, Bush v Gore, Obergefell v Hodges. And because these noble notions are embedded in the 14th, it has the remarkable ability to generate both boundless hope (for the promises of that more perfect union aspired to in the constitution’s preamble) and crushing misery (for the failures to achieve such promises).

The new six-part Netflix docuseries Amend: The Fight for America is a deep dive into the 14th amendment. Ratified in 1868, it gave citizenship to all those born or naturalized in the country and promised due process and equal protection for all people. Amend threads the amendment through the fabric of American history, from its origins before the American civil war to the bigoted violence of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, through the tumultuous years of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, right until today’s feverish debates over same-sex marriage and immigration. The show is a journey into America’s fraught relationship with its marginalized peoples, who have fought to fully be a part of the country.

14th Amendment

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

...

A history of the power of the 14th Amendment. Lots of video footage and photos, as well as the actual stories behind those photos and videos on the history of the 14th Amendment. Scholars, lawyers, activists, and yes, celebrities give life to a must see docuseries.

[mac2766]

1. Added to my watch list...

I like to watch documentaries on Saturday morning. This should be a good one. Thanks for the tip.

[Solly Mack]

2. You're welcome! It's long but worth it.

[mac2766]

7. I binged watched it today. Well worth the time it took to watch.

The single best quote from the series is in regard to the KKK and domestic terrorism. It was S1E3 or 4...

"Nothing emboldens terrorists more than a legal system that ignores their existence"

Several years ago my wife and I re-financed a mortgage on a house we owned in Georgia. The bank sent a couple of people to the house to do the closing. One of the documents that was in the package of a million pages was one that would have had us sign away our Article 14 and 16 constitutional rights. Of course, we didn't sign it. I wrote on the document that I was not being represented at the closing by an attorney and that I refuse to sign this document. The mortgage was approved anyway.

[Solly Mack]

10. Yikes! What a thing to put in mortgage papers.

Glad it worked out. Still.

[3Hotdogs]

3. Many lawsuits include, "... as applied to the states by the 14th. Amendment."

[Solly Mack]

4. Yes.

[PatSeg]

5. Thank you

I've added it to my list. I hadn't heard of it.

[Solly Mack]

6. You'll enjoy it. History lesson from before its adoption until the present.

Long, with six parts, but so worth it.

[mnhtnbb]

8. Thanks for the recommendation.

I needed a new documentary to watch on Netflix.

[Solly Mack]

11. It's very good. Excellent, really. Lot of history packed into each episode.

[malaise]

9. Will watch

Thanks

[Solly Mack]

12. You'll be glad you did.

Thanks!

[Bucky]

13. As a US Gov't teacher, it thrills me to see the 14th getting this much attention

It applies the Bill of Rights to the state governments, it establishes the principle of equal treatment under the law, and allowed the slicing of breadloaves, since which nothing has been better.

[Solly Mack]

14. I agree! I've got an old t shirt that says "14th amendment me".

I hope more people see this thread and watch.