A Great and Mighty Walk

A Great and Mighty Walk Summary

This infamous documentary, A Great and Mighty Walk, explores the life experiences and works of historian, author, and teacher Dr. John Henrik Clarke. The documentary interchanges between Clarke’s personal experiences and his personal interpretations of history. Throughout Clarke analyzes dominant movements in African American history dating to the time in Africa and events such as the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movement, and Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March to name a few.

Born in 1915 to a family of sharecroppers in Alabama, Clarke was born into poverty. Although he and his classmates were not given the proper education to begin or maintain a sustainable lifestyle due to inadequate academic surroundings, Clarke’s intellectualness and inquisitiveness remained engaged. As his academics continued, he began to question why classrooms were learning of different cultures’ history but not his own. Why was the history of African American culture so scarce and seemingly distorted? In the documentary Clarke speaks about