In this adaptation of Gary Paulsen’s inspirational novel, Burnett explores issues of rascism and economic oppression while discovering an indomitable human spirit that manages to perservere. Instead of South Central Los Angeles, however—the frequent terrain of Burnett’s filmic investigations—the setting is a plantation in the antebellum South. Carl Lumbly gives an extraordinary performance in the title role as a slave who refuses to lose his humanity and passes on the gift of literacy to a young slave girl.