Cry Freedom: The Story of Black Struggle in South Africa

Cry Freedom is a story based on the life of the black people who lived in South Africa. The story begins with a journalist named Donald Woods, from the Daily Dispatch, who often writes about the hard life of the blacks. Moments later, a black doctor, named Mamphela (a woman), enters his office to talk to him about an article he had published about Biko's Black Consciousness. She tells Woods to go talk to Biko (a black boy who wanted to end race inequality), since he is confined. Then Donald Woods goes to talk to Biko, and they agree that Biko will show him how black people live. One of the places that Biko shows Woods is a poor area of South Africa where life is not life, and makes a comparison with the lives of white people. Woods decides to take two of Biko's black friends named Tenjy and Mapetla to work at the Daily Dispatch. A few days later, Ken (Woods’ friend) and Woods go to a football match, where a black man is talking about the life of blacks. Later it is Biko who gives the speech. Due to Biko's speech at the football match, the police capture him and take him to the Pretoria court, where he answers the questions they ask him, trying to explain to Judge Regter that all he wants is to end race inequality. At night, the captain of Wet and his companions destroy Biko’s church, but they don’t realize that there is a black witness named Dilima. The police look for the witness, but Woods decides not to say who he was, and he tries to solve the problem by himself. Then, the police go to Biko's house to look for some papers, but he hides them in the child's diaper. In addition, the police also go to Woods' looking for Evalina (Woods' housekeeper, a black woman). But Woods pulls the police out of his house. Biko decides to go to Cape Town to give a talk at a student meeting. But on the way, the police arrest him and take him to prison. There, the policemen mistreat him. Due to the poor condition he is in, they decide to take him to the Pretoria Police Hospital, but on the way, Biko dies from the rebounds caused by the bad condition of the floor. But like many other times, the policemen invent the cause of death and say that Biko decided not to eat and as a result, died from starvation. So, Ken and Biko's wife go to see his body at the morgue, and there Ken takes some photos of the body. Because of Biko's death, Woods decides to go to the United States to publish the photos of his friend's body, with the intention that they investigate the bad police treatment with black people. But the government detained him at the airport and confined him for 5 years (as they did with Biko). Therefore, he can't post anything. In this period Woods writes the Biko’s history, to escape and publish it. To do this, Woods makes a plan. Father Kani helps him. The plan begins on December 31, New Year. Woods dresses as a priest and starts hitchhiking to arrive at the place where he will meet Father Kani. This one takes him to the river so that he crosses it and arrives at the border with Lesotho. But the river is very deep. Fortunately, a black family drives him to the other side of the river. There, he crosses the border thanks to Moises and goes to the British embassy in Lesotho, where he calls his family to tell them to cross the border.

At the same time, on January 1, Woods' family goes to Wendy's parents' house, where they receive the call. After this, they cross the border. They all meet in Lesotho and take a plane to the UK. The South African police detect the plane and threaten to shoot them down, but they tell the police that the Prime Minister is on the plane, and they finally manage to escape.