Resources

This six-hour PBS series, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Loius Gates, Jr. , explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed - forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds.  (Hoopla)

From May until December 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives – many endured savage beatings and imprisonment – for simply traveling together on buses as they journeyed through the Deep South. Determined to test and challenge segregated travel facilities, the Freedom Riders were greeted with mob violence and bitter racism, sorely testing their belief in non-violent activism. From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson, Freedom Riders features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters; the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the rides firsthand. Based on Raymond Arsenault's acclaimed book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, the two-hour documentary was broadcast on PBS in May 2011, marking the 50th anniversary of the historic Rides.  (Hoopla)

Based on the Broadway play of the same name, American Son tells the story of Kendra Ellis-Connor (Emmy-nominee Kerry Washington), the mother of a missing teenage boy, as she struggles to put the pieces together in a South Florida police station. 

From IMDB: Eight North American men, two African American, two Latinos, two Asian American and two Caucasian were gathered by director Lee Mun Wah, for a dialog about the state of race relations in America as seen through their eyes. The exchanges are sometimes dramatic, and put in plain light the pain caused by racism in North America. (1994)

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. In The Danger of a Single Story novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. Presented at a TED Conference,  TEDGlobal 2009  in July 2009.

In Facing Fear: Stories of Women on the Frontlines, women of the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame tell stories of their lives on the frontlines of civil rights.  Produced and directed by Joanna Hay. Executive Producer: Lisa Higgins-Hord, University of Kentucky Office of Community Engagement. Oral History Project Producer: Doug Boyd, University of Kentucky Libraries, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. Narrator: Betty Baye. Interviewers: Betty Baye and Nieta Wigginton. The Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame is a program of  the Kentucky Commission on  Human Rights.

February One - The Story of the Greensboro Four - On February 1, 1960, four college students changed American history. Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil began a sit-in at a white only lunch counter in Greensboro. This act of bravery is noted as one of the vital moments in the American Civil Rights Movement. Offering a documentary portrait of how four young men whose courage led  to other non-violent protests through the 60's.  2003 (Hoopla)

Get Out is a 2017 American satarical horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele  in his directorial debut. It stars Daniel Kaluuya as a young black man who uncovers a disturbing secret when he meets the family of his white girlfriend. Get Out was nominated for four Academy Awards and won for Best Original Screenplay.

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America

Black food is American food. Chef and writer Stephen Satterfield traces the delicious, moving throughlines from Africa to Texas in this docuseries.

Through musical animated shorts, The History of White People in America examines how skin color has come to define race in our country. The shorts (each well under 10 minutes) capture the truth of what it means to be American – that “us” and “them” are constantly redefined, that our racial history deserves contemplation, and that above all else we are bound by our rich differences in experience and identity.

I Am Not Your Negro: James Baldwin and Race in America Filmmaker Raol Peck explores the continued peril American faces from institutional racism in this Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.  The film is based on the unfinished book, Remember This House, by James Baldwin.  (Kanopy, Hoopla, PSPL DVD Nonfiction 323.1196 IAM)

Malcolm X , a biographical movie, directed by Spike Lee, stars Denzel Washington as Malcolm X. The 1992 film was acclaimed through  twenty-four  award nominations and eighteen wins from a wide variety of film organizations. (PSPL, DVD)

Music Theory and White Supremacy by Adam Neely. Despite the title, this video is mostly about the strangeness of studying a handful of German composers as the definitive musical theory we study in the western world while ignoring the vast wealth of musical theory around the world. And yes, that is yet another example of systematic racism.

Slavery By Another Name challenges one of America's most cherished assumptions - the belief that slavery in the US ended with Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation - by telling the harrowing story of how in the South, a new system of involuntary servitude took its place with shocking force . 2015  (Hoopla)

This documentary , shown on PBS in 2014, tells the story of a secret spy agency formed during the 1950s and 60s by the state of Mississippi to preserve segregation and maintain white supremacy. Over a decade, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission employed a network of investigators and informants, including African Americans, to help infiltrate the NAACP, CORE and SNCC. They were granted broad powers to investigate private citizens and organizations, keep secret files, make arrests and compel testimony. The program tracks the commission's hidden role in important chapters of the civil rights movement, including the integration of the University of Mississippi, the trial of Medgar Evers and the KKK murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. (Hoopla)

Toni  Morrison: The Pieces I Am is a documentary about Toni Morrison, the 1993 Nobel laureate in literature, whose work explored black identity in American and in particular the experience of black women, who lived from 1931 – 2019. This documentary, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders was completed with her cooperation. Greenfield-Sanders reports, “I showed Toni the completed film and she said, ‘I like her’(laughs). At film festivals, audiences have come away feeling a connection to Toni and tremendous admiration for her and her life.”

A Video series created by Emmanual Acho who writes, "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,  is a safe place to have the uncomfortable conversations about race that many white people have never been able to have. But enough is enough- I want to remove the barriers for why we’ve never had these conversations. I want to provide a free space for curious white people to answer the questions they’ve always had but have been too nervous to ask. Like, 'How can I have white privilege if I’m not wealthy?', or 'is racial profiling ok if black people tend to commit more crimes', or my personal favorite from a 19-year-old girl from rural Alabama named Amy who asked, 'if black people can say the ‘N’ word, why can’t I?' And many, many more."

Watch this forum featuring Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law at Columbia University and UCLA, and Devon Carbado, Professor of Law at UCLA, hosted by The New Press at Union Chapel, Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts on August 24, 2021. 

This documentary chronicles White Americans reflecting on white racial identity and racism. Areas the video explores include; the question of how people of European descent were transformed into "White" people; what it means to be White; White privilege; the difference between personal prejudices and societal racism; and how White people can challenge contemporary forms of societal racism.