Amazon is in development on “Black America,” an alternate-history drama from producer Will Packer and “The Boondocks” creator Aaron McGruder.
The series, announced just a week after HBO took heat for its own alt-history drama “Confederate” from “Game of Thrones” duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, envisions an alternate reality in which freed African Americans were given the southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama as reparations for slavery post-Reconstruction.
The sovereign nation formed, New Colonia, has had a tumultuous and sometimes violent relationship with its looming “Big Neighbor,” both ally and foe, the United States. The past 150 years have been witness to military incursions, assassinations, regime change, coups, etc. Today, after two decades of peace with the U.S. and unprecedented growth, an ascendant New Colonia joins the ranks of major industrialized nations on the world stage as America slides into rapid decline. Inexorably tied together, the fate of two nations, indivisible, hangs in the balance.
Deadline first announced the project in February, but details were being kept under wraps. Packer told Deadline he felt it was the right time to unveil the premise of the series after the backlash against “Confederate,” which is set in a reality where the South successfully seceded from the Union and slavery still exists.
“It felt this was the appropriate time to make sure that audiences and the creative community knew that there was a project that preexisted and we are pretty far down the road with it,” Packer told Deadline.