Subversion lurks behind the scenes in Forbidden Journey
Having just finished his latest documentary Forbidden Journey, Part One, America-Moscow 1957, a 15 minute long video utilizing the color and black-and-white still photos he took during his trip across Europe to the former Soviet Union, Cohen's camera will once again zoom in on China.
"In the near future I will be working on Forbidden Journey, Part Two, Moscow to Beijing to Washington, DC, which will deal with the group of 41 Americans who defied the US State Department's then-existing travel ban to visit China - and what happened to me and the others when we returned to the United States," Cohen says.
While his film Inside Red China depicted what he, as a journalist, observed about China itself, Forbidden Journey, Part Two will also tell how authoritarian tendencies within the 41 Americans split the group into contending factions and led to physical violence; and how certain individuals tried to make money and gain favor with the US authorities by accusing others of being "subversives" - going so far as offering to testify before the Un-American Activities Committee.
Last year Cohen self-published Black Crusader, which is a biography of Robert Franklin Williams, a leading advocate of armed self-defense in the US civil rights movement of the 1960s.
It tells how Williams was forced to flee the US in 1961 pursued by the FBI, going first to Cuba, where he was offered asylum by Fidel Castro, and then to China, where he was honored by being the only American ever invited to stand next to Chairman Mao Zedong atop the Tian'anmen Square during the 1963 National Day Celebration.
Williams finally returned to the USA in 1971. He was invited to write a guest editorial for the New York Times and became an advocate for better relations between China and the USA.
Cohen says the recent election of President Barack Obama has brought into sharp focus the racism that still torments American society.
"The story of how China reached out to Williams, and of how he was welcomed and supported, especially by Premier Zhou Enlai, should be known by all who are interested in friendship between all the peoples of the world."
Cohen is seeking a suitable Chinese publisher, believing there would be great interest in China in a Chinese translation of his remarkable story.
(China Daily 08/17/2009 page8)
