Private Project

Redeeming Uncle Tom

Narrated by Hollywood actor Danny Glover, Redeeming Uncle Tom is the incredible true story of the nearly-forgotten real-life inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin.

  • Jared Brock
    Director
    Red Light Green Light, Over 18
  • Jared Brock
    Producer
    Red Light Green Light, Over 18
  • David McSporran
    Producer
    Red Light Green Light, Over 18
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Historical, Educational, Black History
  • Runtime:
    56 minutes 35 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 14, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    250,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Jared Brock

Jared A. Brock is the director and producer of Over 18, Red Light Green Light, and Redeeming Uncle Tom. His films have screened nearly 1,000 times and have been broadcast in nine countries. He is a three-time published author, and his writing has appeared in Esquire, Huffington Post, Smithsonian, Writer’s Digest, and TIME.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I've spent the past three years working on a documentary and biography of an incredible, little-known African American hero:

-He rescued 118 enslaved people.
-He won a medal at the first World's Fair in London.
-Queen Victoria invited him to Windsor Castle.
-Rutherford B. Hayes entertained him at the White House.
-He raised millions for the abolitionist cause, and help start a school to educate American refugees
-He helped start a freeman settlement, called Dawn, that was known as one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad.
-He was one of the inspirations for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the novel that Abraham Lincoln jokingly blamed for sparking the Civil War.

But before all this, Josiah Henson was brutally enslaved for more than forty years.

Yet somehow he's been mostly lost to history, until now. I retraced his 3,000-mile journey from slavery to freedom, wrote the biography, and directed the documentary. The biography, The Road to Dawn, has been endorsed by the President of Mauritius, a former Canadian Prime Minister, several senators, the NAACP, the Smithsonian, and a Pulitzer nominee. The documentary, which is narrated by Hollywood actor Danny Glover, tells Henson's story from birth to his arrival on free soil.

It is a profound privilege to help re-introduce the epic life and legacy of Josiah Henson to the nation.