What is Amend: The Fight for America about?
Amend: The Fight for America is a new Netflix original docuseries that premiered on the streamer on Feb. 17. It’s comprised of six one-hour episodes that are hosted by executive producer Will Smith.
At its core, Amend is about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which may have a lot of people scratching their heads and asking, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Surprisingly, a lot, especially when examining two questions in particular: “What does it mean to be an American?” and “What does it mean to be an American citizen?” Those may seem like relatively straightforward questions to answer, but Amend shows it’s not.
Let’s take a look at this comprehensive documentary series that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
What Amend is about?
We hear a lot about the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution. The 1st protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and the freedom to assemble. The 2nd protects the right to “bear and keep arms.”
However, as Amend points out, even though the 1st and 2nd Amendments are the ones people are most familiar with and most often scream about wanting to have protected as a citizen of the United States, that wouldn’t happen if not for the 14th Amendment.
Because what is a citizen? Who is allowed to be one? What makes you a citizen?
Amazingly, something the original Constitution didn’t do was define what a citizen is. That doesn’t happen until the14th Amendment is ratified on July 9, 1868.
Something else that doesn’t appear in the original Constitution, again, not until the ratification of the 14th Amendment, was the idea of equality.
As Will Smith points out in the series:
"“It is through this definition that all the rights we cherish are granted and defended.”"
We’re talking about racial equality, marriage equality, women’s rights, the right to equal protection under the law.
The 14th Amendment is what grants justice and equality for all American citizens, and that is what Amend: The Fight for America is about. It starts with examining the abolition of slavery and progresses through the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Equality movement, the fight for same-sex marriage, and immigration issues.
Basically, it looks at a plethora of hot-button topics using modern-day activists, historians and other experts to give commentary while actors dramatically recite arguments from policymakers and those who challenged those policies. Animated scenes are also used to highlight concepts.
Amend trailer
Watch Amend on Netflix now!