THIST 441 Black Freedom Movement in Perspective: Films

"Opening with a montage of four hundred years of race injustice in America, this powerful documentary provides the historical context for the establishment of the 60s civil rights movement. Rare clips of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and other activists transport one back to those tumultuous times."

Raymond Arsenault, author of "Freedom Riders", speaks with activists in a series of interviews and short film segments. Produced by WGBH.

Using James Baldwin's unfinished final manuscript, Remember This House, this documentary follows the lives and successive assassinations of three of the author's friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., delving into the legacy of these iconic figures and narrating historic events using Baldwin's original words and a flood of rich archival material. An up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, this film is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.

Follow the courageous journey of John Lewis, a civil rights hero, congressional leader, and human rights champion whose unwavering fight for justice spans the past 50 years. The son of sharecroppers, Lewis grew up in the segregated South and rose from Alabama's Black Belt to the corridors of power on Capitol Hill. His humble origins have forever linked him to those whose voices often go unheard.

THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of
16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by
stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the
leaders of the Black Power Movement Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale,
Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews

Revisit the turbulent 1960s, when a new revolutionary culture emerged with the Black Panther Party at the vanguard. Stanley Nelson tells the vibrant story of a pivotal movement that feels timely all over again.

efore there was a Civil Rights Movement in the Unites States of America, there were the actions of the Tuskegee Airmen. Many African American men and women were aviators in the early 1930's, but established military policy forbade them from flying. However, as World War II loomed, there was heavy pressure from black organizations and leaders such as the NAACP, A. Phillip Randolph (head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping-Car Porter's Union), Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, and some journalists to offer U.S. Army pilot training to black United States citizens. Over 950 African American men became fighter pilots at the Tuskegee Army Airfield during World War II. By war's end,the Tuskegee Airmen were awarded 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 744 Air Medals and Clusters, numerous Legions of Merit, the Red Star of Yugoslavia and a Presidential Unit Citation. This is the story of their struggle to be accepted as World War II United States Army Air Corps pilots, and their fight to defend a country that denied them some of their rights and civil liberties.

A documentary examining the life of Bayard Rustin, one of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. However, Rustin was forced to play a background role in landmark civil rights events because he was homosexual. This feature-length portrait unfolds both chronologically and thematically, using interviews with others, and Rustin's own voice, taken from his writings, papers, correspondence, and recorded interviews

Prominent black women comment upon experiences of African American women, upon racial discrimination and its effects upon the American culture and make suggestions which they hope will improve the future. Includes historical footage of civil rights movement in the 1960s.

For six decades Anne Braden (1924-2006) fought for civil rights in America. Born into a white middle-class family in Louisville, Kentucky and raised in Alabama, Anne McCarty began questioning the racial status quo while attending a women's college in Virginia.

Combining archival footage with testimony from activists and scholars, director Ava DuVernay's examination of the U.S. prison system looks at how the country's history of racial inequality drives the high rate of incarceration in America.

This piercing, Oscar-nominated film won Best Documentary at the Emmys, the BAFTAs and the NAACP Image Awards.

This unnervingly vivid dive into the 1971 uprising from Emmy® winning director Stanley Nelson sheds new light on the enduring violence and racism of the prison system and highlights the urgent, ongoing need for reform 50 years later.

Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica brings this historical event to life in new and startling ways. Based on interviews of eyewitnesses who waited four decades to open up and share their stories, as well as newly discovered documents, Criminal Injustice sheds new light on what happened at Attica from September 9th to 13th, 1971, and the role played by local, state, and federal officials. This film raises important new questions about the needless deaths, the White House's involvement, and the influence of Nelson Rockefeller's political aspirations on decisions made before, during, and long after the controversial and deadly event.

This video documents for the first time the history of discrimination against black workers and their heroic struggle for equality on the job. It provides badly needed historical background to current angry debates on race and affirmative action.

Documentary of two 1968 events in the civil rights movement-- the sanitation workers strike in Memphis, Tennessee and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Shows how the black community, local civil rights leaders, and AFSCME mobilized behind the strikers in mass demonstrations and a boycott of downtown businesses.