With an all star cast, Cicely Tyson deserved at least an Emmy nomination for her performance as Flora Henning Palmer. The other cast members is Mario Van Peebles as her son, William Palmer, Queen Latifah as her granddaughter who has a baby boy and is in need of trouble. What does Grandma Flora do but bring them to her home in Stockton, Tennessee from the big city of Baltimore. She begins to tell her story in flashbacks. There is young Flora played brilliantly by Erika Alexander. Young Flora falls in love with the plantation owner's son who hires Flora to care for his elderly grandmother played memorably by Della Reese. Young Flora realizes that nothing can happen between them and she ends the relationship and he ends her employment. She ends back home in her parents' shack. She gives birth to a baby boy that is ripped from her and given by force to his father. She is forced to leave town or her family would lose their farm. Young Flora falls in love again in a new town in Stockton, Tennessee on the road to Memphis when a railroad conductor suggests she stops in this town along the way. She stays, works, and gets married to cotton picker, Booker Palmer. They have a son and she works for a white woman in town who has a baby. When her husband doesn't get enough for his cotton, he resorts to stealing and he gets murdered for it by a white man who gets away with it. Their son Willie drops out of school and Flora is raising her niece since her sister died. There are unforgettable scenes like the one where Flora tries to write since she was never taught in school or when she is honored by her church who kept her going. I know the film may be stereotypical at times but Cicely rises above the occasion like phoenix. She is a just one of America's brilliant actresses who can take on any role and make it her own completely.
