Sons & Daughters of Thunder

Sons & Daughters of Thunder is a docudrama that portrays the true story of the Lane Seminary Debates on Slavery of 1834. Based upon a play from the 1970s by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter, the film is the product of Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films of Moline, Illinois. The name Sons & Daughters of Thunder is based upon a bible phrase.[1]

It was shown at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut on September 12, 2019.[2] The premiere is at Putnam Museum's Giant Screen in Davenport, Iowa on March 16, 2019 and is scheduled for release across the country in May.[1]

The film provides insight to the events that led up to the end of slavery in the United States, including the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Lane Seminary students conducted 18 days of debates about slavery. Theodore Dwight Weld was a co-founder and a student at Lane Seminary. The debates, addressed colonization, where every black would be removed to a colony in Africa[1] It also spoke to the horrors of slavery and were considered controversial and scandalous. James Bradley, a former slave, was one of the speakers during the debates, and he is portrayed in the movie making a speech. There are also excerpts of a July 4, 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass, a social reformer and abolitionist.[1]

Lane's board of trustees prohibited students from talking about slavery and put a gag order on anti-slavery students. Most of the students left Lane Seminary and enrolled at Oberlin College, where the students were free to discuss slavery.[1]

Lyman Beecher, the president of Lane, was a colonizationist. Until the debates, Lyman's daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe, was not aware of how horrible the conditions and treatment were for slaves. She got to know people who were on the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati and saw a slave auction in Kentucky. In 1861, she published Uncle Tom's Cabin, which President Abraham Lincoln credited it for starting the Civil War.[1]

Jessica and Tom Taylor, a married couple, portray Harriet Beecher Stowe and Theodore Weld, an abolitionist. Kimberly Kurtenbach portrays Catherine Beecher, Harriet's sister, she was also the casting director and executive producer.[1] Part of the movie was filmed at the Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the only building that stands at the former site of Lane Seminary. The original score is by Bill Campbell of St. Ambrose.[1]