California Newsreel (Firm).
61) Banished
Language
English
Description
Between 1860 and 1920 hundreds of U.S. counties expelled their African-American residents. The pattern was horrifically similar in almost all cases: a black man was accused of assaulting a white woman, was lynched, and then white rioters attacked black neighborhoods with guns and firebombs. After blacks fled for their lives, whites illegally assumed ownership of the abandoned property. This program places these events in the context of present-day...
62) John Wideman
Language
English
Description
I would find myself very angry about something, or very unhappy about something and not really know why, and the writing was a way to put some perspective on those very powerful emotions..." says John Edgar Wideman. Wideman is the first writer ever to win the International PEN/Faulkner Award twice-once for Sent for You Yesterday and six years later for Philadelphia Fire. In this program, Wideman explains the connections he makes between the Pittsburgh...
Language
English
Description
The Supreme Court's landmark decision on Brown v. Board of Education that ruled public school segregation unconstitutional was the culmination of a brilliant legal campaign that launched the civil rights movement. This documentary tells the story of the battle to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and of the man who led the charge-lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston, also known as "the man who killed Jim Crow." Interviews with Houston's associates recount how...
64) Big Mama
Language
English
Description
This Academy Award-winning documentary profiles a devoted grandmother's struggle to raise her grandson under the watchful eye of a complex and unsympathetic social welfare system. The film follows Viola Dee for 18 months as the 90-year-old cares for 9-year-old Walter in South Central Los Angeles. While contending with her own declining health and Walter's behavioral and psychiatric problems, Dee fights-with limited success-to keep Walter out of foster...
65) Toni Morrison
Language
English
Description
Winner of numerous awards, most notably the Nobel Prize for Literature, Toni Morrison made it possible for a new generation of African-American writers to have a voice in the mainstream literary dialogue. Her evocative, multilayered tales illuminate the black experience and have the power to change how readers look at American history. In this program, Morrison explains her statement that "American literature is incoherent without the contribution...
Language
English
Description
In neighborhoods ravaged by years of disinvestment and racial exclusion, too many children and young people like Caheri Gutíerrez, Antonio Carter, and Javier Arango wrestle with sudden rages, nightmares, inability to trust, depression, and difficulty concentrating in school. Traumatized by violence, poverty, and adversity as disturbing as some war zones, they show symptoms similar to PTSD—except there is no “post.” But peer counselors, doctors,...
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Ask most people who led the 1963 March on Washington and they'll probably tell you Martin Luther King, Jr. But the real force behind the event was the man many call the pre-eminent black labor leader of the century and the father of the modern civil rights movement: A. Philip Randolph.. Randolph believed that economic rights was the key to advancing civil rights. A. Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom takes viewers on a tour of 20th-century civil...
70) Homecoming
Language
English
Description
Using archival footage, and the memories and story of her family, the filmmaker traces land ownership by African Americans. It was at a peak in 1915, when 15 million acres of farm land was owned by African Americans, and it had shrunk to 4 million acres by the 1980's, and continues to decline. Traces the methods by which the land was lost by black Americans, and the complicity of the Dept. of Agriculture, whose racist practices failed those it was...
Language
English
Description
A frank and honest look at black identity in America. Uses incisive storytelling and commentary from prominent black intellectuals, including Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, and Cornel West. Meant to stir provocative debate and add reinforcement to a bold vision for a humanity that embraces all people. Explodes the myth that black America is monolithic.
73) Trouble behind
Language
English
Description
White racism is discussed in the context of the town of Corbin, Ky., where on Oct. 31, 1919 a race riot drove all of the Black residents out of town. Since that date few Blacks have attempted to settle in Corbin. Residents are interviewed to give their perceptions of whether or not racism still exists in their town.
Language
English
Description
Examines the issue of color consciousness within the black community. This film explores a caste system based on how closely skin color, hair texture and facial features conform to a European ideal. A variety of African Americans give their experiences and attitudes towards the question of color.
Language
English
Description
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...
78) Color adjustment
Language
English
Description
Analyzes the evolution of television's earlier, unflattering portrayal of blacks from 1948 until 1988 where they are depicted as prosperous, having achieved the American dream, a portrayal that is inconsistent with reality.