Black Men in Uniform: The Untold Story

(dir. Emunah La-Paz)

By: Adam Freed

The road to racial harmony in America feels as if it has become an interminable voyage without an eventual destination in sight.  For every massive step forward as a nation, there are seemingly an endless array of missteps and injustices that set the massive nation back years, if not decades.  Documentarian Emunah La-Paz explores the history of African American struggle in the United States through the lens of those who have served in uniform in her engaging sixty-minute film Black Men in Uniform: The Untold Story.  La-Paz, the daughter of Air Force Master Sergeant Douglas L. Williams was undoubtedly inspired by her father’s experiences during the Vietnam War, to leap back generations in exploration of the constant uphill struggle that many black Americans have faced in the nation’s 250 years.  While Black Men in Uniform suffers slightly from an unpolished production value, the value of its content far outweighs the facade of its presentation.

La Paz allows her exploration to travel back as far as Pata Seca, an enslaved man of massive physical stature who was forced into continual breeding by his owners for the purpose of populating plantations with generations of powerful offspring.  This inhumane plan worked, as Pata Seca is reported to have fathered more than 200 children, many of whom would be doomed to a life of grueling field work. While it may not be initially apparent why a film dedicated to men of color who have served in the military would include information about slavery, Emunah La-Paz illustrates the expansive connective tissue of matter by next introducing the story of former heavyweight champion prizefighter Jack Johnson.  The history of forced pugilism in the black community at the hands of their white owners created a generational mentality of exploitation that would eventually manifest itself in military service, from the Civil War through the armed conflict in Vietnam.  

From the 6888 Battalion during World War II to the significant history of the phrase “I can’t breathe,” La-Paz packs her documentary film with an unmistakably heartbreaking history of the treatment of African American men and women throughout American History.  Although the film strays away from its central thesis slightly by including extended footage from The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), La Paz rounds Black Men in Uniform: The Untold Story back into focus by first introducing the baseball heavy segment of the film through the filter of Robinson’s military service and subsequent honorable discharge.  While most individuals who have studied African American history at any length will likely be familiar with most of the film’s content, La Paz’s documentary is a wonderful starting point for conversation for young men and women from all cultural backgrounds to gain perspective on the deep-seated institutional bigotry that has weighed upon black Americans for centuries.  The road to true equality may not yet have an end in sight, but the work of filmmakers and historians like Emunah La-Paz can help shape an unwillingness of future generations to continue to walk in the mistaken footsteps of their ancestors.  

Target Score 7/10 - Black Men in Uniform: The Untold Story overcomes the inconsistencies of its presentation to robustly outline the history of innumerable black Americans who have donned the uniform, only to face continual domestic mistreatment.  From generations of the enslaved, to Jackie Robinson, and even to her own father, Emunah La-Paz has crafted a lens through which a specific American history can, and should be explored.