The March of Freedom (Full Episode) | The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman

freedom you say america and it's probably the next word that comes to mind it's our fundamental right to live our lives however we want but freedom isn't something we've always had when i was 18 i joined the air force and i did well enough on my test to qualify as an electronic countermeasures operator but i was told i couldn't take that job apparently no black man could fly with the strategic air command abraham lincoln knew that a country could only truly stand for freedom if it applied to all of its people around the world there's a growing tide of freedom the belief that every person has the right to self-determination is growing stronger and stronger i wonder if one day we will all be free what drives people to fight for freedom five months before elections they told everybody pushing will be the next president i was just really angry can we find liberty even when bound and changed my mind emotions were beyond the confines of that self and when will everyone be free to be who they really are i want to wear a burqa so nobody sees me as a boy that's when i felt what freedom really meant this is my journey to discover the ties that bind us and the common humanity inside us this is the story of us i'm going to meet a man who was born a slave shin dong began his life in a north korean labor camp it was the only world he knew until he was 23 years old i wonder what freedom means for someone who first encounters it as an adult shin and his wife leanne are meeting me in new york city to tell me his story yeah yes how do you do good so how long have you been married two years two years yeah this april is that a long time yet yeah yeah both it feels long at the same time it feels like it was just yesterday okay you got it got you out of holding you've been freed down for what 11 years 11 years yeah okay but you were born in a slave labor camp yeah so how did it come about that you were going to be born there my parents go in the camp was born in the camp they were political prisoners yes the united nations estimates there are about a hundred thousand political prisoners in north korea you can be thrown into a prison camp simply by speaking ill of the country's leader just talk to me a little bit about daily life while you were in the camp you you were there for a long time we woke up around 4am and there would be some kind of signal either a bell maybe a speaker and we would know it's time to go and work so we'd do whatever task it would be it could be farming corn rice it could be working in the coal mines none of us had dreams or hopes for the future it was just so natural that's just the way it was going there live there died there if we do something wrong or don't work well the guards would give us an option you can either starve or get b so one of the rules that we learn is that we are never ever supposed to eat anything um that is not given to us this little girl was probably six or seven at the time but she must have came across something to eat and she didn't want to eat it all at once and she must have wanted to save it so she had to hit it in her pocket and one of the guards had said why didn't you follow the rules you know better than that and he repeatedly hit her on her head and eventually she passed out yeah the next day she didn't come to class so the guard sent us to go get her but when we got to the house she was dead they beat this child to death thank god they didn't go what about your parents really sad but they were just fellow prisoners to me i didn't have any sense of family the hardest thing in my whole life is probably the memory of my mom and my brother i learned as a child that i'm supposed to report to the guards at any point on my own parents you know report if they're doing anything wrong and the more i report on them the better off it is for me so i thought they were escaping and i reported on them i really had no anticipation or thoughts of what would come from that there were many people gathered and my father and i were forced to watch their execution but honestly i really had no emotion deserved later shin recalls meeting a fellow prisoner named park a man who traveled throughout north korea and china he intoxicated shin with descriptions of life lived freely and life with food but the things that were the most fascinating was the way he was able to express and explain the foods he ate like pork the way he would describe it was so interesting and it just pulled me in some might consider it kind of foolish or humorous but for me it was something as simple as food it was that simple thought that kind of drove me initially to run in 2005 january 2nd we were tasked to work near the fence i had actually been the one to initially say maybe this is the time we should try according to shin when they made their break park arrived at the fence first but he accidentally touched the electric wire only shin made it through alive really had no idea what to do or where to go all i knew was that i needed to get away as far as possible of course of course shin crossed the board into china and survived by working odd jobs he made his way to shanghai and from there gained passage to seoul in south korea shin had freed his body but he began to realize his mind was still enslaved you're free how did that feeling many times come to south korea in the night there's a sleep nightmare yeah and because of the nightmares and the mental distress i couldn't even eat i was diagnosed with severe ptsd and from that point is when i started having questions in my head about life and how long were you in south korea about 10 years 10 years it's a long time to get acclimated which brings up you yeah from when i first saw her i i liked her right away and i thought she was pretty and um within a few days i asked if she had a boyfriend and it's very brave very very afraid i must say marrying leanne and choosing to start a family was for shin a decisive break from the chains that had bound him for so long it was so hard for me to comprehend and look at the world around me where parents love their children and feed their children and clothe their children and care for them but now that we are expecting our son i see how my wife is preparing for it and i see that there is a child growing inside of her and i just see the world differently question hi thank you so very much thank you very much thank you we really appreciate you coming and doing this hope to see you again all right that's a good idea thank you so nice meeting you take care of that young thank you okay bye bye bye [Music] shin didn't suddenly feel free he had to learn what freedom is experiencing the joy and challenges of life all the complex choices you have to make he has made those choices he's got married he has a kid on the way and that that's what gives freedom meaning freedom is a state of mind and this man is living proof of that he found a way to be free even though his body was utterly trapped for 43 years i'm headed to louisiana to meet albert woodfox he was imprisoned here in angola state penitentiary for most of his life originally convicted of armed robbery at age 18 he ended up in solitary confinement for longer than anyone else in american history aha mr woodford freeman welcome to my home nice to meet you i would expect anyone who spends four decades in solitary to emerge with a broken soul and deadened mind but albert appears healthy and well adjusted i've come to find out how so what got you in prison i was a predator in my own community you know a petty criminal a person of the street i was on discipline unmotivated and stuff but my crime for going to prison was an armed robbery charge did you go straight to angola when you were convicted no i actually escaped the very day i was sentenced to 50 years okay all right you escaped you're out for a little while well i went to new york you went to new york it was a defining moment in my life because while in harlem i had an up-close encounter with the black panther party [Music] i had always noticed a certain fear in african-americans even those who defied their hearts and achieve certain goals in life for the first time in my life where i seen black people and i didn't see that pier i didn't feel that fear talking about revolution and organizing the black community to protect the people some of the sisters that although they possessed our beauty it was the inner beauty that i was seeing it was the strength the determination the sense of purpose i was profoundly shocked when i realized that hey i am worried something i do matter i actually joined black panther party okay but i got arrested again and i was eventually uh extradited back to louisiana and after that they shipped me to angola uh in 71. but it was an incident a year after his arrival at angola that would change the course of albert's life a prison guard was found murdered april 17th 1972 they found a correctional officer named brent miller murdered in one of the units each unit has four dormitories and i was in the very last unit even though albert's unit was nowhere near the scene of the crime prison authorities accused him of the murder did they ever find out who did it well they they could've they had a bloody thing identified with bloody fingerprint on the door they had the fingerprints at every prisoner in angola at that time they couldn't find out who that fingerprint was for albert believes he and two other inmates were framed because of their affiliation with the black panthers they labeled me a militant during that time a militant meant she was a panther i was placed in a south american family april 18 1972 and i didn't get out of solitary confinement until february 19 2016. albert and the other two inmates each spent decades in solitary confinement they became known as the angola iii human rights groups around the world declared their punishment cruel and inhumane well this room is a little bigger than the cell to give you some idea of the size of cell we lived in in south confinement the cell is approximately you know nine feet long and six feet wide this is the length of it yes good lord so you have a very narrow pad that you can walk up and down set how much time you spend in this space uh 23 hours out of day 23 hours every day every day seven days a week seven days a week 365 days a year it's a living nightmare filled with one horror after another that's the only way i can describe prison the strip search now that is one of the most humiliating experiences you could go through and you have to stand before these people and script completely naked and you have to you know raise your genitals and open your mouth and you know this is what they used to do our ancestors on slave blocks and so we started resisting you know we wouldn't do it you know they would tell you strip and you refuse and they'd beat you and tear your clothes off and stuff slam it on on the desk i don't know how many times i got beat alba's physical world was incredibly small and oppressive but he refused to let his cage confine him that would seem to close the mind amber didn't close yours i never thought about being in the cell my mind emotions and all that were beyond the confines of that self i said that if me dying in solitary confinement become a better human being and to make those around me better it would be worth it i started trying to raise the level of conscience of the prisoners in the dormitory i lived in educate agitate organize against prison corruption prison brutality albert had freed his mind even though his body remained confined we are deeply disappointed that mr woodfox will not be released today twice alban had his conviction overturned twice more the state imposed new charges finally government officials offered to release albert if he pleaded no contest to lesser charges on his 69th birthday after 43 years and 10 months in solitary albert woodfox became the last of the angola 3 to be released albert's body finally followed his mind to freedom he's finally reunited with his family and he gets to enjoy being a great grandfather he's also an advocate for prisoners rights you were amazed at people who were black but not afraid and i think part of your freedom while incarcerated is freedom from fear because if you had been afraid you wouldn't have done any of that no i don't think i could every time you know uh i had to take a stand and knowing that there would be some retribution you know but still overcoming the fear finding the strength let's see i'm st i still got to do this i have to do this that spell c-o-u our thank you albert woodfox had four decades in solitary confinement to think about freedom in prison he learned to cast off the chains that bound him physically and found an inner freedom nelson mandela said to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others [Music] something we must all strive for life without the concept of freedom seems alien to most of us today for most of recorded history freedom was the domain of only a select few royalty nobility and the wealthy but in 1776 13 british colonies in north america dared to declare freedom as a basic human right i'm headed to the american philosophical society in philadelphia to meet with its librarian patrick spiro he studies documents dating back to the time of the country's founding what you're looking at here is one of the first printings of the declaration of independence the first section is the preamble and this is where they talk about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the idea is that individuals should be free to do these things and government is constituted to protect those free traders and what the king has done is broken that contract broken that trust and so they have to be freed from the king in order to be free to do what they want now can you say that this was the first time a group of people decided that they wanted to be free to do whatever the heck they wanted to do well i think it's uh the first time that it was ever written in a official way but this is not the only version of the declaration of independence that survives the other document that i want to show you is this thomas jefferson's draft of the declaration of independence and you can see on the side there's these notes yeah once congress got their hands on this they started changing words changing meanings i think the most notable one is in that famous phrase that people are endowed with certain unalienable rights jefferson originally wrote inherent and inalienable rights inherent rights which jefferson used several times means that all people are born with these rights okay so if these rights are not inherent then you're not necessarily born with them only a few people are born with them and that applied only to white society like mayo yes yes it never occurred to me that the rights to freedom spelled out in the declaration of independence were deliberately phrased to exclude slaves and women thomas jefferson's original draft preserved here in the american philosophical society describes the rights as inherent meaning they should apply to everybody from birth but the final signed version only describes certain unalienable rights in other words only rights landowning white men already had couldn't be taken away the declaration of independence it says that all men are created equal that's not what it meant they aren't writing for the enslaved they aren't writing for women the thing is about this document is that slavery existed in this period but the word is never used and they're purposeful about not using it because they know that it does not comport with the idea of liberty that there's that contradiction that paradox is it safe to say that jefferson was probably one of our most enigmatic presidents yes well you know the thing is jefferson was imperfect you know jefferson had slaves jefferson's imperfections got at the american paradox okay so the declaration of independence is not a document guaranteeing freedom yes i think that's fair but once you put that writing in stone it empowered people it inspired people it drove them to realize what those words meant couldn't mean well it took a lot of fighting and effort heroic actions bravery people willing to risk their lives to realize the promise of the declaration the declaration of independence was not designed to free everyone in america its original purpose was to free powerful american land owners from any obligations to the king of england but once those white men had signed that document they unwittingly opened the road to freedom for the rest of us to walk along [Music] freedom doesn't come without a fight what american revolutionaries fought for over two centuries ago other revolutionaries continue to battle for today i've come to guatemala to meet freedom fighter and nobel peace prize winner rigoberton minchu a guatemalan indian rights activist who fled her country in 1981 after security forces killed her family she has dedicated her life to securing a better future for the indigenous peoples of her country hello hello hello senor freeman [Music] rico belgium belongs to the kiche one of over 20 indigenous groups of mayan descent which make up about half of guatemala's population for centuries the mayan were denied voting rights and land ownership and were forced to labor on plantations some of the worst oppression came during the 36-year guatemalan civil war when tens of thousands of maya were kidnapped tortured and murdered rigoberta gave voice to the plight of her people with an oral testimony that would become her book i regobella them in jewel that book seems to make quite an impact why do you think that is it's full of primera i was the first guatemalan that was able to talk about what was happening here in guatemala i think guatemala was a laboratory for cruelty that they practice torture they practice forced disappearance and they practice brutal hatred against the mayans rider belt's father began organizing rural workers and fighting for indigenous rights but he drew the attention of the regime which was bent on rooting out guerrillas the war reached my home in 1979. and then he was tortured and then he was shot to death on january thirty first nineteen eighty regal barrage's father joined a group of activists occupying the spanish embassy in guatemala city they were protesting massacres and kidnappings taken place in the countryside the authorities ordered a raid but then the embassy caught fire and police blocked the exits it was in the embassy on fire see this was three months after the death of my father my mother was kidnapped and she suffered the worst of the torture despite others and then another one of my brothers had been shot to death your father to mama two brothers those are six the sisters of the sacred family brought me to guatemala city [Music] they were able to get me out hide me with religious orders in mexico how long were you there for 14 years 14 years so i made a promise to fight against impunity for the rest of my life my converting and i became a spokesperson for guatemala rigoberta traveled around the world spreading the story of the maya's quest for freedom she addressed the united nations in 1992 she won the nobel peace prize her tireless work brought international pressure on guatemala's government and helped lead the way to peace in guatemala just as in the civil rights movement in the u.s some people chose to fight for freedom with the sword while others chose the pen it is those who chose the path of peace i believe who laid the foundation for real change if freedom is ever going to become a universal human right it needs people willing to champion it no matter what the danger i'm headed to new york to meet a woman who is fearless in her march for freedom nadia tolokonikova is a founding member of riot a russian protest rock band in 2012 ryan staged a flash concert inside a moscow cathedral their aim was to draw attention to what they saw as suppression of democratic freedoms by russian president vladimir putin with the collusion of the russian church nadia's musical protest cost her 22 months in prison she's free now living in new york and she refuses to be cowed into silence [Music] now the name riot very outgoing and daring and ear catching gets people's attention how many of you started this me and my friend cut mm-hmm but we have open membership because the idea was to start a movement and so everybody could join your group the reason you got arrested was you did this wrong your performance in a church why did you do that was it because you knew you would get arrested and draw a lot of attention or i was just really angry because i woke up one morning and they told it everybody in my country that was ever put into the next president so like five months before the elections they just announced it i was confused i i didn't really like it you went to jail what was that like it made me more stubborn i was stubborn before but it made me more focused if you're able to find inspiration in everything then you could find inspiration in jail too but it doesn't change the fact that you don't have any medication the conditions are terrible i was approached by a lot of women in my camp and they told me like look you're the only one person who could actually help us you have media and you have lawyers and you have voice so just tell what's going on in this prison nadia now had another oppressor of freedom to target russian prison authorities she staged multiple hunger strikes and drafted letters of protest so i was writing these papers to all these different prison officials about what i want from them i wanted them uh improve the food i wanted them to improve their conditions well i mean make enough noise if it seems to me that they would want to shut you completely up stick a needle in your neck and you die you're never worried about that it could happen yeah it would happen even while she was locked in a russian prison nadia tolokonikova remained a freedom fighter battling for basic human rights for inmates so i wrote an open letter and then somehow sneaked with this open letter and they passed it to the free world and it's all over the world it's in the biggest russian media and it's in guardians and times and because it is everywhere i did achieve something because several guys who were in my prison officials they were fired from their jobs what do you hope to do ultimately i think i'm just trying to build this community all around the world you could you could create some wave of inspiration of or energy and then you could inspire some other people if you can inspire five people around you that's enough because if that five people inspire somebody else and then it just will grow i think freedom is a process it's not an idea it's a process of exploring yourself and your existence in the world would you have freedom from wage slavery then join in the grand industrial band would you from misery and hunger be free then come do you share nadia fights for freedom wherever she sees people without it in russia she fought for democratic rights in prison she fought for human rights [Music] in america she's singing an early 20th century workers rights tune reflecting one of her new fights the freedom to join labor unions [Music] freedom may be an eternal principle but in reality freedom will wither and die unless people like nadia fight for it rejuvenated [Music] worshipped [Music] most freedom fighters struggle against outside oppressors kings governments or prison guards but there's another form of freedom the freedom to be and to be seen as who we really are i'm meeting victoria khan a woman who has fought for freedom in every aspect of her life she grew up in afghanistan during the tumult of the early 90s the taliban were gaining a foothold but were being fought by homegrown rebel groups led by ahmad shah massoud you have quite a story to tell me start way back and tell me i was born in afghanistan and my parents were working for ahumachamasu my mom and dad adored me of course and i have a little sister the civil war breaks out somewhere when you're around six or seven years old so one night there's something you can feel there's loud and screaming and gunshots and everyone's home had hidden areas and my mom and dad they put us both of us in there i remember my mom saying don't you come out until everything is quiet then they kissed us they said take care of your sister and that was it can you tell me what happened when you came up street was full of dead bodies blood it's impossible to recognize who's who not only they shot people they chopped off hats chopped off body parts did you find your parents no after the parents were killed all the children were taken by molasses and these imams in molasses would pick i'll take him her him her girl i did that for i would say maybe four or five months until i saw a dizzy mom on top of my sister molesting her and she was five and a half years old so when he went to prayer room ran into the house grabbed my sister and i put her number because she couldn't even walk she was bleeding and i carried around my back maybe a few miles until we found a woman who was sitting outside her home she took us in and gave us some dry bread and water but then she told us she's going to take us to some very safe place it was a wahabi camp for children where they start telling you how become a suicide bomber but they're not going to just on front coming up and say we're going to train you to become a suicide bomber you're wanting to be because they say you're going to meet your mom and dad and we really really wanted to see our parents just as victoria believed she was about to be shipped to pakistan for more jihadi training the rebel leader ahmed shah massoud attacked the wahhabi camp maybe 40 50 fighters comes in the horses with their weapons oh my god this person's gonna save me kills every single one of these people who are torturing these children so he rescues every one of us five six hundred children he was not just the leader of our country he was a spiritual leader savior savior that's what i was looking for after victoria and her sister were liberated a woman offered them safe passage to tajikistan so get this woman she's taking you now to tajikistan yes we're crossing a border i'm crying i said i don't want to be separated from my sister i want to wear a burqa so nobody sees me as a boy you were not a girl i was in the boy's body i look skinny little persian boy physically and beautiful girl inside many people today fight for the freedom to live as their minds and spirits compel them to but victoria khan's struggle to free her true self was coupled with a long battle to stay alive as a transgender woman she grew up in afghanistan being seen as a boy but while crossing the border into tajikistan with her younger sister victoria wanted to make sure they were not separated so she put on a burqa the burqa was that lightning stroke which says yes when i put it on that's the first time that i felt what freedom really meant it felt so right first time i felt like it's like wings i had in my back that i could fly okay now i get the taste of that now i cannot forget it and i cannot give up never having it either victoria spent the next few years making her way from tajikistan to europe where her sister now lives eventually victoria made it to the u.s she had freed herself from the mortal dangers of her childhood but she still wasn't free you're in the united states we'll be free you can do pretty much whatever you want do you feel free i was yearning for that feminine feeling remember when i put the burqa on it made me feel free but i thought putting this western skirt and this headband on it will make me also again feel the same powerful feelings but i had a little bump on that road because closer to a mirror i got there was a fuzzy mustache start growing that was terrifying terrifying to think that it actually will become like my father's with full face beard i was tired of acting as a man it was exhausting 24 7. so first i decided to do my facial it took me almost a year and a half to do electrolysis and lasers and all that is the most it's extremely painful thing then why don't i just do the entire surgery all back to back i went to colombia had 18 surgeries back to back we have a saying about freedom it's not just walls and bars sometimes it's just the mind you're right being free from anything and anyone is the best thing we can ever experience as a human being i hope you do all the things you want to do you've earned them thank you so much thank you victoria has traveled a long road to freedom she was born in a country at civil war survived becoming an orphan escaped becoming a suicide bomber but the hardest ordeal was the last having the courage to free the person she truly is [Music] abraham lincoln said those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves but the war for universal freedom is far from won and the battle lines only move forward slowly around the world millions of people still live in slavery women still struggle to be granted the same rights as men others just want to be allowed to be the person they know they are inside it's been truly humbling to meet those people who fought so hard for their freedoms their stories are a shocking reminder of how vigilant we must be to protect human rights but they also give me a glimmer of hope that one day those rights will apply to all of us [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 1,210,862

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, The March of Freedom, Freedom, Freedom March, The Story of Us, Morgan Freeman, Morgan, Freeman, Morgan Freeman The Story of Us, Morgan Freeman nat geo, Freeman nat geo, Morgan nat geo

Id: xh0bWb5vi8I

Length: 47min 27sec (2847 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020