The Women of Brewster Place is a 36 year old series starring Oprah Winfrey. I remember seeing it back in 1989 when it first came out and thinking it was revolutionary in several ways.

The Women of Brewster Place is one of the first things I can remember seeing with a mostly Black cast. In a two part series made for television, that was remarkable. It also featured a lesbian couple, which was another remarkable thing about it.

The first half of the story belongs to Mattie (Oprah Winfrey). She got pregnant at 16, was thrown out by her father, and went to the city to live. A kind Miss Eva (Barbara Montgomery) took her in and she stayed there until her son was grown. But her son was no good. He took her money and left her homeless.

That’s when she moved into an apartment at Brewster Place. Miss Eva’s granddaughter, who had been raised with Mattie’s son, was living there. Ciel (Lynn Whitfield as an adult) lived there with her baby and her sometimes present husband. Mattie thought the husband was no good – but by now in her life she thought all men were no good. She could never bring herself to say a good thing about any man.

Mattie’s lifelong friend Etta Mae (Jackée Harry) came to Brewster Place to be with her for a while. There were an assortment of neighbors including the activists Kiswana (Robin Givens) and Abshu (Leon). Cicely Tyson played Kiswana’s mother and, as usual, she turned her few minutes on the screen into a lesson in brilliant acting.

Ben (Moses Gunn) was the kind super living in the basement. The two lesbians that upset everyone so much were played by Lonette McKee and Phyllis Yvonne Stickney.

As I said, at the time, this series was amazing to see on a screen. Now, 36 years later, looked at it with today’s eyes, it was filled with tropes and trite caricatures. But judged from the prospective of 1989, it was groundbreaking and fearless. Donna Deitch directed. Karen Hall wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Gloria Naylor.

I watched it on Peacock, where the two episodes were combined into one lengthy movie. It can also be seen on Tubi, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, and Plex. It’s a bit of nostalgia for a past time and some famous actors when they were very young.