Yes, I loved it when I first saw it. I thought it quite real and not too romantic when I first saw it, I was quite young though.

By Wyatt (207.106.60.190) on Friday, May 18, 2001 - 10:45 am:

Yes, Roberto I too saw that series when it came out in the 1980's. It was very powerful and beautiful, both for me as a Southerner but also as a multiracialist/integregrationist.

Vergilia, played by Kirstie Allie, was a compelling and powerful character throughout. What a wonderful way to address the real issues of the "Peculiar Institution" of slavery; it's barbarism and the human tolls and fagility. Ms. Allie is a incredible actor and real beauty, eh?

The issue of miscegenation and race mixing is the one area where Americans lack understanding, and live in complete denial. This story, "North and South", is a real piece of historical fiction. It addressed the horror not just of Southern slavery, but the hypocrisy of Northern industrial capitalism, which held ethnic whites(mainly Irish workers) in abject poverty and virtual slavery. Please watch that episode. It also dealt with the historical chronicling of Angelina and Sarah Grimke. Two sisters of slave holding family in Charleston, S.C., who joined the abolitionist movement; defied the southern laws and helped runaway slaves and eventually one married a black former slave or freeman. This was used as the model for Virgilia's character, but it is very much a true story. In fact the daughter or ganddaughter of the couple has a book(non-fiction) out. Look in the ethnic studies section at Border's bookstore.

By Roberto (64.12.102.153) on Friday, May 18, 2001 - 10:07 am:

I was watching a segment of the series "North and South" about America before and after the Civil War (first time I have seen this series) and I was struck by the character played by Christie Alley (my god what a beautiful woman) who was from a wealthy family from the North and became involved in the Abolitionist Movement of John Brown. She was quite a character, who would upset the relationship between her Northern family and her brothers best friend's family from the South.

The segment I like was when she took a black lover to prove that her beliefs in freeing the slaves was genuine, and to prove that she could love a black man was powerful. When she stood up in the middle of that dinner between her family from the North and her brother's friend family from the South and said that she loved her black lover and she was being made to feel guilty, because she loved a black man and saw him as a man, My goodness what a performance. Has anyone seen this series? ~ Roberto