Henry Browne, Farmer 1942 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA); Canada Lee; World War II Home Front

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'Daily life of a patriotic African American farmer in Georgia during World War II.' Narrated by Canada Lee.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Browne,_Farmer

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Henry Browne, Farmer is an American short propaganda film produced in 1942 about African-American contributions to the war effort during World War II. It is narrated by Canada Lee.

The film begins with stock footage of soldiers marching, tanks, and people in the war industries, the narrator noting that we had an army behind the troops in the war industries, and they had an army behind them, American agriculture. The story switches to a day in the life of Henry Browne, farmer; Henry Browne is 38 years old, married with three children. He makes his living off the land. When the sun comes up every member of the family has their chores to do. Little Henry goes to milk the cow, this is the first year they had a cow. His sister goes to feed the chickens, which are good layers, and the ones that aren't are good "eaters". Mrs. Brown tends the garden. There is little in the garden that will be sold, the narrator says, but much that will be eaten.

Henry looks out into his field. He is not planting what he usually plants, but peanuts like the government man asked. The peanuts will create peanut oil, contributing to the war effort. Henry Brown doesn't have a tractor, but only two mules.

On Saturday farmer Browne takes those same two mules and hooks them up to a carriage. Saturday is usually the day that farmers go to the market, but Henry has taken his whole family along this time. In fact, the mule-drawn carriage passes town altogether. The farmer is not going to market today, but seeing his son — a Tuskegee Airman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Lee

Canada Lee (born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata, March 3, 1907 – May 9, 1952) was an American actor who pioneered roles for African Americans. After careers as a jockey, boxer and musician, he became an actor in the Federal Theatre Project, most notably in a 1936 production of Macbeth adapted and directed by Orson Welles. Lee later starred in Welles's original Broadway production of Native Son (1941). A champion of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, Lee was blacklisted and died shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He furthered the African-American tradition in theatre pioneered by such actors as Paul Robeson. Lee was the father of actor Carl Lee...