The Los Angeles Lakers legend's film, Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution, premieres on Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on the History Channel
“We fought for this nation in the same way and by the same way as any other group,” Abdul-Jabbar continues. “And the whole idea why we’re not treated equally has to do with the fact that we’re not deserving of our citizenship. That we didn’t earn it. We absolutely earned it, and we have to change those attitudes because it leads to all the negatives that we’re trying to eliminate.”primarily focuses on the lives of a writer, a double agent, a martyr and a soldier during the war.
“She was promised her freedom and it was denied. She partitioned the State of Massachusetts, who supported her claim and granted her freedom,” Abdul-Jabbar says. “They respected her and accepted her as a citizen with full rights. But it’s something that we’ve had to fight for continually, every step of the way.”
When asked why he believes these stories have largely been left untold, Abdul-Jabbar says African Americans have been marginalized by those who have written history.James Armistead, a black soldier who spied for the Americans, in, Yorktown, Virginia, 1781 “They don’t necessarily eliminate these stories, but they don’t give them the attention that they deserve,” he says. “They wanted to make it seem like the things that were important to our nation’s history had to do with Americans of European descent, and everything else is not really important, especially the contributions of people of color who made it possible for the American Revolution to succeed.
The film also looks at the black soldiers who were recruited to fight on the British side under the guise that they would be granted their freedom. Though Britain lost the war, 3,000 black men, women and children
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