Will Packer and Aaron McGruder developing series that envisions new nation created by freed African Americans.

Will Packer

On the heels of HBO’s fumbled announcement of its upcoming alternate history drama Confederate, Amazon is joining forces with prolific producer Will Packer for its own alternate history series. 

Amazon is developing Black America, which presents an alternate history where newly freed African-Americans have secured the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama post-Reconstruction as reparations for slavery, and with that land, the freedom to shape their own destiny. 

The sovereign nation they form, New Colonia, has endured 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, and coups. 

Today, after two decades of peace with the US and unprecedented growth, an ascendant New Colonia joins the ranks of major industrialised nations on the world stage as America slides into rapid decline. Inexorably tied together, the fate of two nationshangs in the balance.

Packer (pictured) is developing the drama with The Boondocks creator and Black Jesus co-creator Aaron McGruder.

HBO’s announcement of Confederate, from Game Of Thrones creator DB Weiss and David Benioff, prompted the producers of Black America to disclose the show’s premise.

“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.