Inside History: Protest. Revolt & Reform

EMPEROR
BRINGING SHIELDS
GREEN TO THE BIG
SCREEN
"Hundreds of thousands of slaves attempted to escape and
over 100,000 actually succeed. Why don’t we talk about
that?"
Mark Amin, the writer and Director of Emperor was making
a very good point. It's not as if Hollywood hasn't made
movies about slavery before. Yet for his new movie, he has
decided to tell a story about a man who not only escaped
from his enslavers, but would go on to participate in the
Raid on Harpers Ferry where the aim was start a slave
revolt against their enslavers and the system of slavery.
Amin continued by saying: "I thought it would be really
interesting to make a movie about the slave who fought
back. That was when we started to look around for those
who did that. We looked at many stories and when we
came across Shields Green, suddenly I thought, oh my god,
this guy has connected all the dots. He was only 23, he had
a five year old son, he ran away and made it to freedom, he
met John Brown, he met Frederick Douglass, he took part in
Harpers Ferry and Harpers Ferry was taken back by Robert
E Lee. These are three of the most prominent figures in
American History. Shields Green crossed paths with all of
these people."
Yet the story of Shield Green is a largely untold one. In
terms of historical evidence, his is a history that is sparse in
details. It is an issue that makes the telling of his story
somewhat problematic yet completely compelling and
necessary. Turning someone who has been but a footnote
in American history into the central focal point of a movie
He could have gone to Canada and
lived happily ever after but instead
Shields Green chose to fight knowing
that this could be a suicide mission.
was an issue as Amin freely admits:
Mark Amin, Writer/Director
"Nobody really knows about his journey when he escaped
the plantation. We did a lot of research and found nothing.
We even looked for descendants of him but we couldn’t
find any. We tried to stay as faithful as we could to his
character and the major events. His meeting with John
Brown and Frederick Douglass. The dialogue for that is
accurate from the historical records that we have."
Film makers, when dealing with historical figures, are often
accused of taking liberties with the real lives that they aim
to portray. In telling the story of Shields Green, Amin
focuses on what is already known with enough creative
license available to him to form a character that we really
should be celebrating as a man of defiance alongside the
abolitionist, John Brown.
"He could have gone to Canada and lived happily ever after
but instead Shields Green chose to fight knowing that this
could be a suicide mission. To me that was so unique and
showed what a heroic character he was and yet, we don’t
really know that story."
16 INSIDE HISTORY