Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman has said that black history needs to be embraced so that people can “move on”.
The 86-year-old is part of a new documentary called 761st Tank Battalion: The Original Black Panthers about a unit staffed by African-American personnel in the Second World War that played a significant role in military operations against Nazi Germany.
Asked why he thinks their story has been overlooked and forgotten about, Freeman told Good Morning Britain: “Systemic racism … exists in our country.
“White people don’t want their children to know about it because they don’t want them to get guilt complexes.”
He added: “This is history, let’s not run away from it, let’s embrace it and move on.”
Discussing the way history was taught in schools, Freeman said he found Black History Month “to be just a total insult”.
“There is so much more to history then what you can cram into 28 days,” he said.
Many doubted the 761st Tank Battalion during World War II, but these men were willing to sacrifice all for each other and their country. pic.twitter.com/B0fJrm6lRX
— HISTORY (@HISTORY) August 15, 2023
“If you get into some sort of mindset where teaching our young that there is something wrong about teaching this history, that is a warp.”
The 761st Tank Battalion trained, amid the restrictions and racism of the Jim Crow laws in the southern United States, and their motto was “come out fighting”.
According to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, more than one million African-American women and men served in the military during the Second World War and they battled racism at home and while serving in the military.
Freeman’s accolades include an Oscar, American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, the Golden Globes’ Cecil B DeMille Award and a National Medal of the Arts from former US president Barack Obama.
761st Tank Battalion: The Original Black Panthers will air on October 1 in the UK on Sky History.