The Hollywood star is part of a new documentary about the 761st Tank Battalion, otherwise known as the ‘original Black Panthers’.
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Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman has said that black history needs to be embraced so that people can “move on”.
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The 86-year-old is part of a new documentary called 761st Tank Battalion: The Original Black Panthers about a unit staffed by African-American personnel in the Second World War that played a significant role in military operations against Nazi Germany.
Asked why he thinks their story has been overlooked and forgotten about, Freeman told Good Morning Britain: “Systemic racism … exists in our country.
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“White people don’t want their children to know about it because they don’t want them to get guilt complexes.”
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He added: “This is history, let’s not run away from it, let’s embrace it and move on.”
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Discussing the way history was taught in schools, Freeman said he found Black History Month “to be just a total insult”.
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“If you get into some sort of mindset where teaching our young that there is something wrong about teaching this history, that is a warp.”
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The 761st Tank Battalion trained, amid the restrictions and racism of the Jim Crow laws in the southern United States, and their motto was “come out fighting”.