Alex Haley's Queen - Plot

Plot

The series begins with the friendly relationship between James Jackson, Jr. (Tim Daly), the plantation owner's only son, and his slave, Easter (Jasmine Guy), daughter of an African house slave, Captain Jack, and his true love, Annie, a Cherokee native. It is revealed that Easter and James grew up together, and gradually, their feelings for each other develop into romance.

Just minutes after the death of his father, James Jackson, Sr. (Martin Sheen), James retreats to the comfort of the weaving house where Easter lives. James and Easter make love, and it is only when they are alone months later, that Easter reveals she is carrying his child. In the meantime, James is being pushed by his widowed mother, Sally Jackson (Ann-Margret) to marry the respectable and socially equal Elizabeth "Lizzie" Perkins, heiress to a cotton fortune (Patricia Clarkson).

On April 8, 1841, Easter gives birth to a healthy baby girl. Excited about his new granddaughter, Captain Jack announces to James' family during dinner that a slave child has just been born. In his announcement, he assures James that "Easter's doing just fine." This worries Lizzie, James' soon-to-be fiancee. Excusing herself from the table when she realizes the baby Jack is speaking of was indeed fathered by James, Lizzie vows to never marry him. Her mother convinces her otherwise. In the meantime, James is seen entering the birth in his date book.

James proposes to Lizzie the next evening, and the two are married at the home sometime later. During his engagement to Lizzie, James continues to visit Easter's cabin. While he is legally Lizzie's husband, James is still in love with Easter. James later convinces Easter to let Queen live in the plantation house, where she can be trained as a Ladies' Maid. Easter and Lizzie are both opposed to the plan, but James' word is final, and five-year-old Queen (Raven-Symoné) is taken to live with her father. While living at the mansion, Queen is tormented and teased by the slave children because her fair complexion and ability to read. James, seeing his daughter in trouble, chases the other children off, asking her why they are teasing her, Queen confesses that she knows how to read, James hands Queen over to Captain Jack. He goes to Easter's cabin, looking for the books Capt Jack had taught Queen to read from when James asks Easter what the books are she says nothing, a couple days later he comes back and leaves children's books there for his daughter to read. Although it is illegal for slaves to be educated, James gives her books in secret.

Meanwhile, Lizzie learns that she is pregnant. She and James welcome a daughter, Jane, whom Queen is ordered to care for and serve. Although she is Jane's half-sister, Queen's relation to the family is not acknowledged because of her slave status.

The film fasts forward to 1860; Queen (Halle Berry) and Jane are two young ladies growing up in the South. There is talk of a civil war breaking out among the North and South because of the slave trade. While no one wants war, James tells Easter, that if war does come, he will fight in the Confederate Army.

Later in the year, the Union Army invades, and James leaves for battle. As he rides away, Easter, Queen, Jack, Lizzie, Sally and Jane, stand watch. It is at this moment that Easter confirms to Queen that James is her father.

While James is gone, Queen serves the ladies of the house, Lizzie and the now elderly Sally Jackson, as does Queen's mother, Easter. During a diphtheria epidemic, both Easter and Jane come down with the disease. Lizzie sends for the family doctor, but he tells her there is nothing to be done about Jane's deadly condition. Jane dies, and soon Easter becomes ill. Just as James returns from the battlefield, Easter dies with Queen at her side.

Regarding the plantation as her rightful home, Queen vows to stay with "her people". However, though Sally Jackson has been kind to her granddaughter over the years, she is also pragmatic in the aftermath of the war and Emancipation and makes it clear that Queen can expect no help or support from them. After a mishap and run-in with Mr. Henderson (James' foreman) and his friends, Queen hides until morning then returns home, tired and hungry. When questioned by Lizzie as to her whereabouts the previous night, Queen lashes out over the mistreatment she has endured living there. Queen finally tells Lizzie that James is her father. When James returns home from searching for Queen, he discovers Queen leaving.

Now on her own, Queen finds it hard to find a place in society. Due to her being very light-skinned, Queen does her best to 'pass' as a white woman. Along the way, she befriends Alice (Lonette McKee), a young woman in the same position in Decatur. Teaching Queen how to not give herself away with "slave talk", Alice takes her new friend under her wing. While at a local dance hall (for white's only), Queen meets Digby (Victor Garber), a seemingly religious, ex-Confederate soldier who treats African-Americans as if they were animals. Digby falls in love with Queen and soon, the two become engaged to marry. When Queen tells Alice of the events leading up to Digby's proposal, Alice is horrified and tells Queen that she cannot marry him, but Queen ignores her warnings.

After Digby makes sexual advances towards her in his apartment, Queen becomes frightened, confesses to Digby that she is the daughter of a slave woman and Colonel Jackson. As a result, Queen is beaten, raped, and kicked out onto the street. Fearing that she will be found out as well, Alice turns Queen away, leaving her to fend for herself. Desperate and starving, Queen seeks help from the Christian black community of Huntsville, which takes her in. A job is arranged for her with two white women, Miss Mandy and Miss Giffery, who hire her as a housemaid.

Seemingly well-settled, Queen attends a local African church, where she meets an African-American woman who she befriends. After settling into her job, Queen later meets a man named Davis. The two fall in love, and Queen finds herself pregnant with his child. Promising her that they will run to freedom, Queen leaves for the train station, but Davis never shows. Obviously abandoned, Queen is taken under the wing of Doris, a woman from the church where she and Davis met. At first, Queen opts to abort her pregnancy. At the last minute, she changes her mind and returns to Mandy and Giffery's house.

Calling Queen a sinner, Miss Mandy, along with Giffery's help, plans to steal her child as soon as it is born and raise him as their own. Queen then asks for help from the preacher at her church. He says that there is nothing she can do to stop the women from stealing her son.

As a result, Queen takes Abner and runs for her life, planning to move north. She gets a job with an aristocratic woman, Mrs. Benson, nearby and eventually comes across Davis leading a Black strike. He is captured and brought before a judge, but manages to convince the man to let him and his followers go. He and Queen reconcile shortly thereafter. However, Mrs. Benson tricks her into leading the KKK, of which Mr. Benson is a member, to Davis' hideout in the woods. They approach his house and he comes out armed with a shotgun, but is forced to lower his weapon when he sees that they have Abner. He is then lynched and Queen finds his charred body the next day, with her child in a cage beside him. She sets out on the road again.

She soon meets Alec Haley, a widowed African-American farmer, who also runs the ferry, and raising his young son, Henry. At first, Queen finds a job, again as a housemaid, with a kind, old man, Mr. Cherry. In the process, Queen and Alec fall in love and eventually marry. While each has a son from a previous relationship, the two have a third son together, named Simon.

As their boys grow up, Abner wants to leave home to find his own place in the world and Simon wants to attend college. The family gives Simon money so he can go to school. Alec tells Abner he can go as well, but Queen refuses to let her first-born depart, telling him that Alec Haley is not his real father. During this time, Queen seems to lose her sense of reality. While shoving pieces of wood/kiln into the stove, her skirt catches fire, and she runs out into the wilderness. It is only the next morning that she is found by a neighbor and his son. Queen is admitted to a mental institution, where she encounters Mr. Cherry, the man she'd worked for years ago. Queen asks Mr. Cherry to loan her fifty dollars so that Abner can go out on his own. He lends her the money, and the Haley boys leave home. The miniseries ends with Queen and Alec sitting on their front porch as Queen tells her story of growing up as a slave owner's daughter.