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Film Plots
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FILM PLOTS -- in alphabetical order

NOTE: We do NOT have titles that are in italics

4 Little Girls (2 hours, 1997)
Birmingham, 1963. A single explosion rocked a community and awakened a sleeping nation. A documentary of the notorious racial terrorist bombing of an African American church during the Civil Rights Movement. This film recounts the people and events leading up to the one of the most despicable hate-crimes during the height of the civil-rights movement, the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In that attack, four little African-American girls lost their lives and a nation was simultaneously revolted, angered and galvanized to push the fight for equality and justice on.

10,000 Black Men Named George (95 min, 2002)
When the Great Depression struck America in the 1920s finding work was hard, but if you were poor and black it was virtually impossible. Working as a porter for the Pullman Rail Company was an option, but it meant taking home a third as much as while employees and working some days for free. You could forget about being called by your real name--all black porters were simply called "George" after George Pullman, the first person to employ emancipated slaves.
Asa Philip Randolph, a black journalist and educated socialist trying to establish a voice for these forgotten workers agrees to fight for the Pullman porters' cause and form the first black union in America. Livelihoods and lives would be put at risk in the attempt to gain 10,000 signatures of men known only as "George." This is the true story of how a courageous leader came to be known as "the most dangerous man in America."

A Huey P. Newton Story (2001)
A Huey P. Newton Story is an intimate portrait of Huey P. Newton, the late co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Director Spike Lee and Roger Guenveur Smith collaborate for the 7th time to bring Newton's thoughts, philosophies, history and flavour to life. Adapted from Robert Guenveur Smith's Obie Award winning off- Broadway solo performance of the same name, Spike Lee brings the play from the stage to the screen as only he could. Shot before a live audience, Spike Lee uses his signature mixture of film and archival footage, to capture Newton's "inner mind." The film is complemented by period material and original compositions from sound designer Marc Anthony Thompson. This film is a piece of history that will bring the meaning to "Without Struggle There is No Life".

A Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom (86, 1996 CA Newsreel))
Randolph was born in 1889 in the deeply segregated South. When he was reduced to performing menial labor despite an outstanding academic record, he headed north - to Harlem. The film traces Randolph's early years amid the fervor of the Harlem Renaissance where he encountered the socialism of Eugene Debs, became a renowned soapbox orator and, with Chandler Owen, founded the radical magazine The Messenger.
In response to the race riots of 1919, Randolph and Owen formed the National Association for the Promotion of Labor Unionism Among Negroes. Soon a group of Pullman car workers asked Randolph to help them organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The film revisits the group's bitter 12-year battle with the notorious Pullman Company, which tried repeatedly to destroy the union using spies and firings. The 1934 Wagner Act finally created a level-playing field, enabling the Brotherhood to win an organized contract in 1937, the first ever between a company and a Black union.

Al Otro Lado

American Blackout

And the Earth Did not Swallow Him (99 min, 1995)
Based on Rivera's award winning novel, "...Y no se lo trago la tierra," captures life on the road and in the fields through the eyes of a young boy. His search for identity takes him through the racism of the 1950's into the discovery of Chicano culture.

Alice’s Restaurant (111 min, 1996)
Arlo Guthrie's song is converted into a motion picture. Arlo goes to see Alice for Thanksgiving and as a favor takes her trash to the dump. When the dump is closed, he drops it on top of another pile of garbage at the bottom of a ravine. When the local sheriff finds out a major manhunt begins. Arlo manages to survive the courtroom experience but it haunts him when he is to be inducted into the army via the draft. The movie follows the song with Arlo's voice over as both music and narration. You can get anything you want there, or so went Arlo Guthrie's song, a lengthy monologue about a Thanksgiving dinner and how its aftermath kept Guthrie out of the Vietnam-era draft. Arthur Penn's movie version, which stars Guthrie, James Broderick, and Pat Quinn, has a shambling, good-natured feel, much like Guthrie's epic tall tale. But as it follows Guthrie's adventures (he gets arrested for improper disposal of Thanksgiving garbage and the arrest renders him unfit for military service, in the draft board's eyes), it also examines the freewheeling nature of relationships in that period--and the toll that freedom took on those relationships. Guthrie is a natural performer, particularly funny during the draft board sequence; but the heart of the film is Quinn and Broderick's troubled marriage.

All Power to the People: The Black Panther Party and Beyond (115 min, 1996)
This powerful documentary provides the historical context for the establishment of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in the mid-1960's. Government documents, rare news clips, interviews with ex-activists and FBI/CIA agents define the bloody conflict between political dissent and repressive government authority in the U.S. during the period of the 60s and the 70s.

American Gangster

Amistad (155 min, 1997)
A group of African people who were brutally dragged from their villages are being transported for slave trade. Only knowing that they are chained and mistreated one man breaks loose and leads a rebellion against the ship's crew. In order to ensure their own freedom they must take the lives of their captors. They are discovered in American waters, and a trial ensues as to the question of murder.
It becomes an international case. Everybody from the queen of Spain to the owners of the ship "Amistad" are claiming ownership of these men and women. Being pre-civil war, the abolitionists are also making a case for their freedom. This is a case that could lead America one step closer to Civil War. One property lawyer who has never worked on a case of this proportion, takes on the task of trying to prove that these are not plantation slaves, but citizens of Africa taken by force and did what they needed to do to be free, as any American would do the same. His task is a difficult one, but as the tragic story of these people unfolds he is able to put on his defense. They also get some help from the ex-president John Quincy Adams, whose eloquence puts the Declaration of Independence to the test.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (110 min, 1974)
Story of a black woman in the South who was born into slavery in the 1850s and lives to become a part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Plot Synopsis: In February, 1962, as the civil rights movement reaches Bayonne, Louisiana, a New York journalist arrives to interview Jane Pitman, who has just turned 110. She tells him her story dating back to her earliest memories before slavery ended, a long walk toward freedom, marriage to Joe Pitman, her adopted son Ned's work as an educator, helping to raise Jimmy, who returns as a civil rights worker, and her own decision to become involved in contemporary issues. In between the chapters of her life, the present-day struggles of Blacks in Bayonne, urged on by Jimmy, are dramatized.

Awakenings (V.1 of Eyes on the Prize) (55 min, 1989)
From grass-roots protests to Supreme Court victories this video tells the stories that launched the modern fight for civil rights. It takes us through the legal basis for segregation and inequality. Covering the murder of Emmett Till, the courage of Rosa Parks, the growing Black Rights Movement, and the formation of the Southern Leadership Conference and the introduction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Banished

Before Rosa: The Unsung Contribution of Sara Mae Flemming

Bastards of the Party

Bobby

Beloved (172 min, 1998)
Based on Toni Morrison’s award-winning novel of the same name.
The film traces the life of Sethe (played in her middle years by Winfrey), a former slave who has rebuilt what seems to be a peaceful, productive life in Ohio. Yet through chilling, sparing use of flashback, Demme slowly unveils the horrors of Sethe's former life, and the terrible event that led to the haunting of Sethe's home. While the horrors of slavery and the bloody event in Sethe's family leave undeniable impressions, the film's brilliance is also evidenced in smaller, equally satisfying ways. Rachel Portman's spiritual-influenced score is as uplifting as it is haunting, and the glimpses of the post-slavery African American world--as with a simple family outing to a local carnival, or a ladies' sewing-and-gospel circle--make this a treat for the intellect as well as the heart.

Berkeley in the Sixties (117 min, 1990)
This outstanding documentary by Mark Kitchell, is a comprehensive and insightful story of campus and community activism as born at the University of California at Berkeley. Using extensive archival footage and bridging the distance between past and present with more recent interviews, Kitchell shows how a 1960 protest aimed at the House Un-American Activities Committee was the launching point for the Free Speech movement, which evolved into organized opposition against the Vietnam War, support for the Black Panther party, and the feminist movement. No simple valentine to student-demonstration days, the film brilliantly uses contemporary perspective to show how great legacies and inevitable failures were simultaneously born in a charged atmosphere.

Betrayal of Democracy (PBS Frontline)

Biographies: Mae Carter, Irene Morgan, Ruby and Ossie Davis; Bill Russell

Black Theater: The Making of a Movement (114 min, 1978 CA Newsreel)
Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement documents the birth of a new theatre out of the Civil Rights activism of the 1950s, '60s and '70s. It is a veritable video encyclopedia of the leading figures, institutions and events of a movement that transformed the American stage.
Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins, James Earl Jones and Ntozake Shange describe their aspirations for a theatre serving the Black community. Excerpts of A Raisin in the Sun, Black Girl, Dutchman and For Colored Girls... reveal how these actors and playwrights laid the basis for the Black theatre of the present.

The Birth of a Nation (187 min, 1915)
Based on a play called "The Clansmen," D.W. Griffith's three-hour Civil War epic traces the development of the Civil War itself, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan through the lives of two families. D.W. Griffith's jumbo-size saga of the Civil War expanded the boundaries of storytelling on the screen, conveying a richer, more complicated (and certainly longer) tale than anyone had seen in a movie before. The delicate relationships, the sad passage of time, the spectacular battle scenes all look as fresh and innovative today as they did in 1915. So do Griffith's brilliant actors, most of them--including favorite leading lady Lillian Gish--drawn from his regular stock company. What has become increasingly problematic about The Birth of a Nation is Griffith's condescending attitude toward black slaves, and the ringing excitement surrounding the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith, whose political ideas were naive at best, seemed genuinely surprised by the criticism of his masterwork, and for his next project he turned to the humanist preaching of the massive Intolerance. Despite protests, Birth sold more tickets than any other movie, a record that stood for decades, and President Woodrow Wilson famously compared it to "history written in lightning." That judgment has lasted.

The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords (98 min, 1989)
an engaging historical account that tells the story of the pioneering men and women of the Black press who gave voice to Black America. It is the first documentary to provide an in-depth examination of the history and contributions of African American newspapers. Since the early 1800’s Black newspapers have existed in almost every major city in the U.S.

Born on the 4th of July (145min, 1989)
The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for. "Born on the Fourth of July" tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic's gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion. During his time in Vietnam, Kovic sees the true nature of war. His platoon mistakenly fires upon a town where the enemy is supposedly hiding; however, they end up killing women and children. During the confusion that follows, Kovic accidentally shoots a fellow soldier and his guilt would encompass him for years to come. But when Kovic himself is wounded in a field, he returns home paralyzed from the waist down, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans' hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process.

Boycott (113 min, 2002)
When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, the Reverend Martin Luther King was but a modest young Baptist minister suddenly thrust into the leadership of local bus boycott. What started as a one-day protest of unfair bus laws turned into the 381-day boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement. This riveting, rousing made-for-cable drama meticulously recounts the challenges the protest faced. Jeffrey Wright (Basquiat) is excellent as King, capturing his charisma and rousing speeches while grounding his heroism in human vulnerability and fear, but Boycott reminds us that he was only one of the thousands of ordinary people roused into extraordinary action in the name of equality and social justice. That portrait of everyday heroes changing the course of history remains the film's most rousing message.

Bound for Glory (146 min, 1976)
This is a lyrical and affecting biography of legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie. David Carradine gives a powerful performance as the traveling Depression-era vagabond whose music affected generations. Guthrie is portrayed as an earnest soul whose passion and empathy for the working class spurs him to inspirational heights. Ronny Cox (Deliverance, Beverly Hills Cop) plays a union organizer who sees the value in Guthrie's words and music and persuades him to put his music to good use for the people struggling to earn a living wage. Featuring Melinda Dillon as Guthrie's wife, this easygoing travelogue conveys an authentic sense of period Americana and won Academy Awards for Haskell Wexler's cinematography as well as for the score based on Guthrie's own music. Bound for Glory is an important film to see for anyone in love with the origins of folk music and interested in its place in the 20th century.

Bridge to Freedom (V.6 of Eyes on the Prize) (55 min, 1987)
After ten years of effort, what had changed? From Selma to Montgomery, this program captures some of the movement’s most crucial protests, and follows the fight for voting rights to the highest corridors of power. Climaxing with the signing of the Voting Rights Act, the program celebrates the promise that the movement made famous: “We Shall Overcome.” The various strategies employed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the SCLC are seen in the nonviolent street protests utilized to generate nationwide sympathy and federal intervention.

Brother Outsider (83 min, 2002, CA Newsreel)
He was there at most of the important events of the Civil Rights Movement -- but always in the background. Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin asks "Why?" It presents a vivid drama, intermingling the personal and the political, about one of the most enigmatic figures in 20th -century American history. One of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the march on Washington, intelligent, gregarious and charismatic, Bayard Rustin was denied his place in the limelight for one reason -- he was also gay.

Brother to Brother

Call to Witness

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. 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.

Civil Rights Heroes: Mae Carter; Bill Russell; Irene Morgan; Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis

A Class Apart: Hernandez v. Texas

The Color of Friendship (2000)
Inspired by actual events comes this Emmy Award-winning movie about two girls from different worlds who learn the ultimate lesson about tolerance and friendship. When African-American Congressman Ron Dellums and his daughter Piper (Shadia Simmons, ZENON: THE ZEQUEL), greet their South African exchange student Mahree (Lindsey Haun, BRING IT ON), they're surprised to discover she's white. But no one's more surprised than Mahree herself, a product of the Apartheid system, who's been raised to view dark-skinned people as second-class citizens. Only if Piper and Mahree can learn to see past their differences will they discover the friendship of a lifetime.

Come Walk in my Shoes

Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (117 min, 1987)
A made-for-cable-TV docudrama about the trial of the men accused of conspiring to cause protesters to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Combines in an innovative manner dramatic recreations (largely faithful to the actual trial transcripts) with documentary footage and interviews with the actual defendants.
This film has historic value, as it was written from the actual court records. It was made in cooperation with the original Chicago 8. The film documents the insanity of this particular trial, highlighting the in-court binding and gagging of Black Panther activist Bobby Seale. It confronts the injustices of our legal system with unflinching hilarity. This film is a must see for every American, as it will force the viewer to question all assumptions about Constitutional law.

The Cradle Will Rock (134 min, 1999)
"Based on a (mostly) true story," according to the opening titles, Tim Robbins's dazzling dramatization of one of the great stories in American theater indeed takes a few liberties with history. Ostensibly the story of the mayhem surrounding Marc Blitzstein's worker's opera The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles for the WPA at the height of the Depression, Robbins paints a veritable mural around this incident, a city alive with plotting industrialists (John Cusack as Nelson Rockefeller), radical artists (Ruben Blades's Diego Rivera), and struggling citizens (Bill Murray's frustrated vaudeville ventriloquist Tommy Crickshaw). Lightning strikes when the government closes the show before it even opens and the cast marches 20 blocks to an empty theater and tosses the staging aside to perform in the aisles, the balconies, and the seats. It's a rare moment of cinema capturing the immediacy and charge of live theater on the screen and it's the heart of Robbins's often exhilarating film. His heroes are Blitzstein (a warm, gently impassioned Hank Azaria) and cheery WPA Theater director Hallie Flanagan (Broadway star Cherry Jones), but in the process he snidely turns Welles and producer John Houseman into sour, silly caricatures. The stew of artistic creation and political action gets murky and at times contradictory, but vivid performances and Robbins' driving pace and staccato crosscutting keep it humming through even the most didactic moments. The songs are by Blitzstein, and the character-rich cast also features Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, John Turturro, Emily Watson, and Philip Baker Hall.

Deacons for Defense (99 min, 2003)
Plot Synopsis: The words "Black Power" bring back memories of names like Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and Eldridge Cleaver, but in Bogalusa, LA a group of harassed Afro-Americans had decided they'd had enough and took up arms to defend themselves and force the white power structure to listen to them. This took place during "Freedom Summer", 1964, right after the Civil Rights Act had become law. Fact based movie stars Forest Whitaker and Ossie Davis, the former as the founder of the Deacons of Defense and Justice (DDJ) and the latter as a peaceful minister trying to prevent the unavoidable violence that will follow. The story revolves around the white-controlled factory which provides 70% of the town's income and employees 40% of its people. Segregation is still clinging on within the factory, with blacks denied the supervisory positions and forced into separate lunchrooms, bathrooms, and drinking fountains. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) has its strongest power in this area and, as the DDJ gets armed the KKK brings in more members from throughout the U.S. There will be a war!

A Dream Deferred (V.2 of The Promised Land) (90 min, 1995)
A rural people becomes an urban one. Cultural and political gains are offset by overcrowding and ghettoization of African-Americans, as Northern politicians ignore the ticking time bomb of resentment. A time bomb that would explode in the Sixties.

The Ernest Green Story
This is a docu-drama starring Morris Chestnut of Boyz in the Hood as Ernest Green and Ossie Davis as his father. Ernest Green was the only senior among the nine black students who integrated Arkansas' Little Rock HIgh School in 1957.

Eyes on the Prize --- excerpts (55 min, 1987) WHITE POWER STRUCTURE
Splicing together segments that deal with the white power structures of the Soutth: KuKluxKlan, White Citizens’ Council, Police, Politicians etc.

EYES ON THE PRIZE I
Documentary, six-part series. Eyes on the Prize is the most comprehensive documentary on the American Civil Rights struggle from 1954 to 1965.

1. Awakenings (1954-1956) (60 min, 1987)
From grass-roots protests to Supreme Court victories this video tells the stories that launched the modern fight for civil rights. It takes us through the legal basis for segregation and inequality. Covering the murder of Emmett Till, the courage of Rosa Parks, the growing Black Rights Movement, and the formation of the Southern Leadership Conference and the introduction of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2. Fighting Back (1957-1962) (60 min, 1987)
In the years that followed the first victories of the Civil Rights Movement, many would try to stop the tide of change, using local laws and state troops to block integration. From the schoolhouse to the White House, the confrontation between state and federal government marked an escalation from which there was no turning black. Emphasizes the critical 1954 Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

3. Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961) (60 min, 1987)
As the movement’s front lines moved from the courts to confrontations in daily life, college students led the way. This video follows the effort to integrate society beyond the campus. This program zeroes in on four related stories: the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960; the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC; the impact of the movement on the 1960 presidential campaign; and the freedom rides of 1961. Considerable attention is given to the Federal vs. States’ Rights Issue that was prominent during the period.

4. No Easy Walk (1962-1966) (60 min, 1987)
This program places the issue of civil rights into a broad historical context, describing the growing commitment of activists to nonviolent tactics. This video captures a time when many people chose sides in the struggle and paid the highest price. The civil rights struggle became a “mass movement” during this period. Federal policy shifted in response to the marches and demonstrations. This program highlights the involvement of the federal government and various political tactics utilized.

5. Mississippi: Is This America? (1962-1964) (60 min, 1987)
Central to the Civil Rights Movement was the fight for the right to vote. This video chronicles the voting rights efforts of activists like the NAACP’s Medgar Evers, and the pivotal Freedom Summer of 1964. And it captures the signs of hope – support from the White House and the signing of the Civil Rights Bill – that planted the seeds of political reform. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Robert Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others are featured. Profiles of the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC and COFO are provided. The role of Northern whites and their participation in the Freedom Summer of 1964 is also highlighted.

6. Bridge to Freedom (1965) (60 min, 1987)
After ten years of effort, what had changed? From Selma to Montgomery, this program captures some of the movement’s most crucial protests, and follows the fight for voting rights to the highest corridors of power. Climaxing with the signing of the Voting Rights Act, the program celebrates the promise that the movement made famous: “We Shall Overcome.” The various strategies employed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the SCLC are seen in the nonviolent street protests utilized to generate nationwide sympathy and federal intervention.

EYES ON THE PRIZE II

7. The Time Has Come (1964-66) (60 min, 1990)

8. Two Societies (1965-1968) (60 min, 1990)

9. Power! (1966-1968) (60 min, 1990)

10. The Promised Land (1967-1968) (60 min, 1990)

11. Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-72) (60 min, 1990)
A call to pride and a renewed push for unity galvanize black America. World heavyweight champion Cassius Clay challenges America to accept him as Muhammad Ali, a minister of Islam who refuses to fight in Vietnam. Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., fight to bring the growing black consciousness movement and their African heritage inside the walls of this prominent black institution. Black elected officials and community activists organize the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in an attempt to create a unified black response to growing repression against the movement.

12. A Nation of Law? (1968-71) (60 min, 1990)
Black activism is increasingly met with a sometimes violent and unethical response from local and federal law enforcement agencies. In Chicago, two Black Panther Party leaders are killed in a pre-dawn raid by police acting on information supplied by an FBI informant. In the wake of President Nixon's call to "law and order," stepped-up arrests push the already poor conditions at New York's Attica State Prison to the limit. A five-day inmate takeover calling the public's attention to the conditions leaves 43 men dead: four killed by inmates, 39 by police.

13. The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-80) (60 min, 1990)
In the 1970s, antidiscrimination legal rights gained in past decades by the civil rights movement are put to the test. In Boston, some whites violently resist a federal court school desegregation order. Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, proves that affirmative action can work, but the Bakke Supreme Court case challenges that policy.

14. Back to the Movement (1979-mid 80s) (60 min, 1990)
Power and powerlessness. Miami's black community -- pummeled by urban renewal, a lack of jobs, and police harassment -- explodes in rioting. But in Chicago, an unprecedented grassroots movement triumphs. Frustrated by decades of unfulfilled promises made by the city's Democratic political machine, reformers install Harold Washington as Chicago's first black mayor.

The FBI’s War on Black America (50 min, 1989)
The FBI's War on Black America offers a thought provoking look at a government-sanctioned conspiracy, the FBI's counter intelligence program known as Cointelpro. This documentary establishes historical perspective on the measures initiated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI which aimed to discredit black political figures and forces of the late 1960's and early 1970's. Combining declassified documents, interviews, rare footage and exhaustive research, it investigates the government's role in the assignations of Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and Martin Luther King Jr. The film reflects the rigorous research which went into its making, and portrays the nation's unrest during the period it recounts.

The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers’ Struggle (116 min, 1996)
This historical documentary tells the story of Cesar Chavez, the charismatic founder of the United Farmworkers Union, and the movement that he inspired--one that touched the hearts of millions of Americans with the grape and lettuce boycotts, a nonviolent movement that confronted conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan and the powerful Teamsters Union. This chapter of American history recounts an inspiring story of hope and courage against overwhelming odds, a story of poor people taking control of their lives.

Fighting Back (V.2 of Eyes on the Prize) (55 min, 1989)
In the years that followed the first victories of the Civil Rights Movement, many would try to stop the tide of change, using local laws and state troops to block integration. From the schoolhouse to the White House, the confrontation between state and federal government marked an escalation from which there was no turning black. Emphasizes the critical 1954 Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

Fists of Freedom

Faubourg Treme

For Us, the Living: The Story of Medgar Evers (1995)
For Us the Living, a movie that recently sneaked onto video after airing on national T.V.The story of Medgar Evers, a civil rights leader from the early to mid sixties who was murdered by the Klu Klux Klan.

A Force More Powerful (6 x 30 min, 2000)
A Force More Powerful is a two-part documentary series on one of the 20th century’s most important and least known stories—how non-violent power overcame oppression and authoritarian rule. In South Africa in 1907, Mohandas Gandhi led Indian immigrants in a nonviolent fight for rights denied them by white rulers. The power that Gandhi pioneered has been used by underdogs on every continent and in every decade of the 20th century, to fight for their rights and freedom.
    * Nashville, Tennessee 1960. In the 1960s, Gandhi’s nonviolent weapons were taken up by black college students in Nashville, Tennessee. Disciplined and strictly nonviolent, they successfully desegregated Nashville’s downtown lunch counters in five months, becoming a model for the entire civil rights movement.
    * In India in the 1930s, after Gandhi had returned from South Africa, he and his followers adopted a strategy of refusing to cooperate with British rule. Through civil disobedience and boycotts, they successfully loosened their oppressors’ grip on power and set India on the path to freedom.
    * In 1985, a young South African named Mkhuseli Jack led a movement against the legalized discrimination known as apartheid. Their campaign of nonviolent mass action, most notably a devastating consumer boycott in the Eastern Cape province, awakened whites to black grievances and fatally weakened business support for apartheid.
    * Denmark. In April, 1940, German military forces invaded Denmark. Danish leaders adopted a strategy of “resistance disguised as collaboration”- undermining German objectives by negotiating, delaying, and obstructing Nazi demands. Underground resistance organized sabotage and strikes, and rescued all but a handful of Denmark’s seven thousand Jews.
    * In 1980, striking workers in Poland demanded independent unions. Using their leverage to negotiate unprecedented rights in a system where there was no power separate from the communist party, they created a union, Solidarity. Driven underground by a government crackdown in 1981, Solidarity re-emerged in 1989 as Poland’s governing political party.
    * In 1983, Chilean workers initiated a wave of non violent protests against the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Severe repression failed to stop the protests, and violent opposition failed to dislodge the dictatorship- until the democratic opposition organized to defeat Pinochet in a 1988 referendum.

Freedom on my Mind (110 min, 1994 CA Newsreel)
This film tells the story of the Mississippi freedom movement in the early 1960s when a handful of young activists changed history. When Bob Moses, a young Harvard student filled with gentle determination, came to Mississippi in 1961 to head up the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's voter registration drive, a black man could be convicted of "eye rape" for looking at a white woman; all African Americans were denied the right to vote. The first man to accompany Moses to the courthouse to register, a farmer named Herbert Lee, was later shot dead by a state legislator. We witness the growing confidence and courage of poverty-stricken sharecroppers, maids and day laborers as they confront jail, beatings and even murder for the simple right to vote. One who joined the campaign, Endesha Ida Mae Holland, a former prostitute, today a Ph.D., recalls, "White people looked me in the face for the first time. I couldn't turn back." In 1964, organizers, fearing for their lives and hoping to attract the attention of the nation and federal government, recruited 1,000 mostly white college kids from around the country to join them for Freedom Summer. Volunteers recall the culture clash between the largely white, middle class outsiders and the poor black residents whose homes and dinner tables they shared. Although three students were murdered, the drive signed up 80,000 members for the insurgent Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and sent an optimistic delegation, led by sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer, to the 1964 Democratic convention. We share their crushing betrayal by President Johnson and Hubert Humphrey which, Moses argues, led a generation of disillusioned young black people to reject "the system." Yet Freedom Summer helped transform political power in the South forever, leading to passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Today Mississippi has more black elected officials than any other state. Those who participated in the struggle took away a profound sense of possibility and a deepened commitment to justice. So too will viewers of this film.

Freedom Song (2000)
The story of the Civil-Rights Movement as seen through the eyes of a teenage Owen Walker growing up in bigotry laden Mississippi in the 1960s at a time when Jim Crow segregation laws were legal. Based on accounts of actual Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee members. This gives a good summary of what was happening in Mississippi before Freedom Summer. The characters are composites of actual people. The feature film is very accurate. It is particularly good at showing how to "get ready to be ready" for the right historical moment.

The Front (95 min, 1976)
A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand. The Front is both a comic delight and perhaps the most graceful act of show business revenge in cinema history. Written by, directed by, and starring various talents blacklisted during the McCarthy-era witch hunts of the 1950s entertainment industry, the film stars Woody Allen as Howard, a cashier and bookie approached by blacklisted television-writer Alfred (Michael Murphy) to act as a "front," i.e., the alleged author of Alfred's works. The scam proves hugely successful. Soon Howard is fronting for several other banned writers, taking a cut from every sale to the networks, and basking in praise (and romantic attentions) for his prolific talent. It all unravels when congressional investigators dig into Howard's past for Communist ties and squeeze him to name others with supposed links to the Red Menace.

FUNDI: The Story of Ella Baker (45 min, 1981)
FUNDI reveals the instrumental role that Ella Baker, a friend and advisor to Martin Luther King, played in shaping the American civil rights movement. The dynamic activist was affectionately known as the Fundi, a Swahili word for a person who passes skills from one generation to another. By looking at the 1960s from the perspective of Baker, the "godmother of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee," FUNDI adds an essential understanding of the U.S. civil rights movement. (also on DVD: Malcolm X's 1964 speech in Harlem on Housing and Self-Defense)

Get up Stand up: The Story of Pop and Protest (120 min, 2005)
Since the early 20th century, musicians have come together in the name of human rights to fight war, hunger, corruption, oppression, AIDS, apartheid, and Third World debt. From single songs passed by word of mouth to star-studded, multimillion-dollar benefits, activists from Joe Hill to Bob Geldof have spoken up by singing out, drawing together disparate groups of people with unforgettable verse and universal harmony. GET UP, STAND UP serves as a timely reminder of the potent role music has played in a century's worth of political protest.
The program traces the birth of protest songs back to the American union movement and explores the impact of pop culture in politicizing the baby boomer generation during the Vietnam era. It delves into the history of politics and protest in black music, from the civil rights movement and pacifism to black separatism and gangsta rap. The music in GET UP, STAND UP is omnipresent, moving seamlessly from "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to "Power to the People." By weaving together historical footage and commentary from today's musicians and music critics, the program puts the power of pop into perspective. From the 1970s on, American musicians began taking on larger and larger issues in countries as diverse and far-flung as Bangladesh and Tibet. Benefit concerts and individual hit songs, including Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" and USA for Africa's "We Are the World," raised millions while capturing the attention of billions worldwide.

Gandhi (188 min, 1982)
Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 film is an engrossing, reverential look at the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who introduced the doctrine of nonviolent resistance to the colonized people of India and who ultimately gained the nation its independence. Kingsley is magnificent as Gandhi as he changes over the course of the three-hour film from an insignificant lawyer to an international leader and symbol. Strong on history (the historic division between India and Pakistan, still a huge problem today, can be seen in its formative stages here) as well as character and ideas, this is a fine film.

The Garden

Ghosts of Mississippi (130 min, 1996)
Ghosts of Mississippi is a drama covering the final trial of the assassin, Bryon De La Beckwith (Woods), of the 60s civil rights leader Medgar Evers. It begins with the murder and the events surrounding the two initial trials which both ended in a hung jury. The movie then covers District Attorney, Bobby DeLaughters (Baldwin) transformation and alliance with Myrlie Evers (Goldberg), wife of Medgar Evers, of the, as he becomes more involved with bringing Beckwith to trial for the third time 30 years later. Some of the characters are played by the actual participants in this story.

Go Tell it on the Mountain (100min, )
John Grimes is a sensitive young teenager who bears the daily criticism of his step-father. As he endures the redicule, resentment and anger of this man, John tries to understand himself and the world he is to inherit.
Go Tell It On The Mountain (Adaption of James Baldwin's work) takes us on the journey of southern Black men and women as they attempt to survive in their rural south and run away to the urban north. While up "north", you witness their escapism into sanctified religion, the pull of the streets on their children, the secrets in their hearts and the bitterness of unfulfilled dreams.
Told from the perspective of John, the viewer sees a cultural change and transition in the lives of these new residents of urban America. Join in the pulsating rhythms of the sanctified store-front churches. Feel the needs of young people who want to be free but are held in bondage by the fundamentalist mindsets of their elders. What is most intriguing about the film is Gabriel, John's step-father. His life, loss, bitterness and inability to fully accept John shows what happens to a man who has no anchor.

Granny D Goes to Washington

The Great Debaters

Harlan County

Harlan County War

The Hip Hop Project

Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action

Hoxie: The Last Stand

The Hurricane
A docu-drama starring Denzil Washington as the boxer, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was wrongly convicted of murder in 1967 and spend nearly two decades in jail. It is a compressed and simplified account of a long ordeal but excellently highlights the role that a black teenager plays in reviving Carter's legal case that eventually vindicates him in the early 1980s. The movie inspires one to listen closely to Bob Dylan's song, The Hurricane, once again.

Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice (53 min, 1989, CA Newsreel)
Though virtually forgotten today, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name in Black America during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of her well-known African American contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison reads selections from Wells' memoirs and other writings in this winner of more than 20 film festival awards.

Iron Jawed Angels (124 min, 2004)
A fresh and contemporary look at a pivotal event in American history, telling the true story of how a pair of defiant and brilliant young activists took the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote. Alice Paul and company are not afraid to show how openly ticked off they are about being held to laws they cannot help form. Much to the chagrin of the older `respectable' American suffragists (who want to wait for men to give them the vote), the British experience encourages demand for full sociopolitical equality. When they are jailed for their convictions, the women refuse to eat. By our modern expectations, the prison response (shown in graphic detail) is especially brutal.

James Baldwin Biography (45 min, 2004)

KuKluxKlan: A Secret History(50 min, 2005)
From its birth out of the ashes of the Civil War to rare interviews with the current Grand Dragon and Imperial Wizard, this is the definitive history of the KKK. History Channel production.

Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance

Lady Sings the Blues (143 min, 1972)
Diana Ross stars as legendary blues singer Billie Holiday in this biopic that chronicles her rise and fall. It begins with her late childhood, a stint as a prostitute, those early days as a blues singer, her marriages, and her drug addiction. Overly glossy and lacking depth, this is worth seeing only for the performances. A dynamo with sparkling screen presence, Diana Ross realistically conveys the confusion and unhappiness that caused Holiday so much grief.

Let Freedom Sing

Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later (70 min, 2007)
The wave of desegregation that transformed the South during the 1960s began in Little Rock in September 1957. But what is the legacy of the Civil Rights struggle for equal education today? Brent and Craig Renaud followed the lives of contemporary Central High students, teachers and administration, as well as community leaders, over the course of a year for this intimate documentary, visiting classes, school meetings and assemblies, teenagers' homes and community events. Sharing the stories of both black and white students, the special reveals the opportunities and challenges facing them in and out of the classroom.

The Long Walk Home (98 min, 1991)
This film features a story set against the backdrop of the emerging civil rights movement of the 1950s South. Spacek plays a Southern socialite who becomes gradually enlightened by the plight of her housekeeper, played by Whoopi Goldberg, as she struggles to raise her family amid the increasing turmoil, prejudice, and violence around her. A well-done treatment of an important period of American history, The Long Walk Home is an effective and accurate period drama.

The Long Walk To Freedom (30 min, 2004)
A story of 12 ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things in the Civil Rights movement.
The format and the organization of ideas of the 30-minute documentary make the information accessible to a wide spectrum of people -- from average eighth graders in American history courses to their high school counterparts, eleventh graders, studying the same subjects at a higher level. Students in language arts courses, both at the middle and high school level, can also supplement or frame their studies of particular books

Looking For Langston (45 min, 1988)
Award-winning British filmmaker Isaac Julien`s LOOKING FOR LANGSTON is both critically acclaimed and controversial. The film is a lyrical and poetic consideration of the life of revered Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. Isaac Julien invokes Hughes as a black gay cultural icon, against an impressionistic, atmospheric setting that parallels a Harlem speakeasy of the 1920s with a 1980s London underground nightclub. Extracts from Hughes poetry are interwoven with the work of cultural figures from the 1920s and beyond, including Essex Humphill, Bruce Nugent, and Robert Mapplethorpe, constructing a lyrical and multilayered narrative.

Lords of the Revolution

Malcolm X (201 min, 1992)
The controversial chronicle of the life of spiritual and political leader, Malcolm X, assassinated at age 39 by black extremists. Biography of Malcolm X, the famous African American leader. Born Malcolm Little, his father (a minister) was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. He became a gangster, and while in jail discovered the Nation of Islam writings of Elijah Muhammad. He preaches the teachings when let out of jail, but later on goes on a pilgrimage to the city of Mecca, there he converts to the original Islamic religion and becomes a Sunni Muslim. He changes his name to El-Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz and stops his anti-white teachings, as he realizes the error of his mistakes. He is later on assassinated and dies a Muslim Martyr.

Malcolm X: Make it Plain (145 min, 1994)
Political philosopher and visionary, husband and father, dynamic orator and militant minister, Malcolm X was both loved and despised, revered and feared – until an assassin’s bullet cut him down in 1965. This video is an in-depth film portrait that goes straight to the heart, the mind and the message of one of the modern era’s most complex figures. His story is told through the memories of people who had close personal and working relationships with Malcolm X, from prominent figures, to Nation of Islam associates, to Malcolm’s own family members.

Medium Cool (110 min, 1969)
Plot Outline: TV news camera find himself becoming personally involved in the Violence which erupts around the 1968 Democratic Convention.
Medium Cool is an almost impossible oddity: director Haskel Wexler wanted to shoot a fictional, narrative film wherein actors mingled with real people in an uncontrolled social environment. With that in mind, he began filming a movie about racial tensions in Chicago during the weeks prior to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, on the assumption that there would be a riot there. Then he brought his cast, crew, and camera to the scene of the proposed mayhem, and waited. . . and lo and behold, civil disorder broke out. It's intensely strange to see actors, playing characters, interacting in a real-life situation with real cops and real hippies fighting and running about. This is made stranger still by the story, about a reporter covering the growing unrest in the black ghettos of the city who discovers that the FBI may be in cahoots with his network. In preparing his script, Wexler assumed that the riot would be racial, but in fact it turned out that most of the rioters were white, so the final scenes seem to interrupt the narrative and make the film an odd pastiche and a commentary on the lack of connection between politics and life. Perhaps more of a curiosity than a wholly successful film, Medium Cool is still worth seeing for its striking footage and unprecedented combination of the real and the imaginary.

Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks (45 min, 2004)
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks sparked a revolution by sitting still. Her simple act of defiance against racial segregation on city buses inspired the African American Movement of Montgomery Alabama to unite under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Over the course of a year, the legendary bus boycott would test the endurance of the peaceful protestors, overturn an unjust law, and create a legacy of mighty times that continues to inspire social justice activists today. From the Teaching Tolerance series, a production of the Southern Poverty Law Center. An entertaining and educational documentary, featuring stunning original black & white footage, and music by Keb Mo, John Lee Hooker, and more.

Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle (58 min, 1983 CA Newsreel)
Miles of Smiles chronicles the organizing of the first black trade union - the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This inspiring story of the Pullman porters provides one of the few accounts of African American working life between the Civil War and World War II.
Miles of Smiles describes the harsh discrimination which lay behind the porters' smiling service. Narrator Rosina Tucker, a 100 year old union organizer and porter's widow, describes how after a 12 year struggle led by A. Philip Randolph, the porters won the first contract ever negotiated with black workers. Miles of Smiles both recovers an important chapter in the emergence of black America and reveals a key source of the Civil Rights movement.

Milk

Miracle at St. Anna

Mississippi, America (60 min, 1995)
Using archival footage and on- camera interviews, the film tells the story of how a coalition of civil rights organizations and thousands of black and white Americans, including attorney’s from the National Lawyers Guild, joined forces during the summer of 1964 –Freedom Summer – to assist blacks in Mississippi in their fight for the right to register to vote. That summer’s challenge to Mississippi’s legal and political system reflected a growing national commitment to the application of the right to vote for all Americans, resulting in the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Mississippi Burning (127 min, 2001)
A well-intentioned and largely successful civil rights-era thriller. Mississippi Burning, using the real-life 1964 disappearance of three civil rights workers as its inspiration, tells the story of two FBI men (Hackman and Dafoe, entertainingly called "Hoover Boys" by the locals) who come in to try to solve the crime. Hackman is a former small-town Mississippi sheriff himself, while Dafoe is a by-the-numbers young hotshot. Yes, there is some tension between the two. The movie has an interesting fatalism, as all the FBI's best efforts incite more and more violence, which becomes disturbing--the film's message, perhaps inadvertently, seems to be that vigilantism is the only real way to get things done. The story line of Mississippi Burning is ultimately unsatisfying--it is, after all, the story of white men coming in to rescue poor blacks..

Mississippi: Is this America (V.5 of Eyes on the Prize) (55 min, 1987)
Central to the Civil Rights Movement was the fight for the right to vote. This video chronicles the voting rights efforts of activists like the NAACP’s Medgar Evers, and the pivotal Freedom Summer of 1964. And it captures the signs of hope – support from the White House and the signing of the Civil Rights Bill – that planted the seeds of political reform. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Robert Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others are featured. Profiles of the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC and COFO are provided. The role of Northern whites and their participation in the Freedom Summer of 1964 is also highlighted.

The Murder of Emmett Till (53 min, 2003)
In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old black boy whistled at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till, who was from Chicago, didn't understand that he had broken the unwritten laws of the Jim Crow South until three days later, two white men dragged him from his bed in the dead of night, beat him brutally and then shot him in the head. Although his killers were arrested and charged with murder, they were both acquitted quickly by an all-white, all-male jury. Shortly afterwards, the defendants sold their story, including a detailed account of how they murdered Till, to a journalist. The murder and trial horrified the nation and the world. Till's death was a spark that helped mobilize the civil rights movement. Three months after his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, the Montgomery bus boycott began.

Murder in Black and White, Volume I (2 hours; one hour for each case)
Al Sharpton examines the reopening of two cases: (1) surrounding the murders of four young African-Americans in 1946 Georgia--George and Mae Murray Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Malcom; and (2) Lamar Smith was also a victim of a hate-crime in Mississippi in 1955, while registering blacks to vote.

Murder in Black and White, Volume II (2 hours; one hour for each case)
Al Sharpton examines the reopening of two cases: (1) Willie Edwards' death was considered a suicide in Alabama in 1957 but he was killed by the Klan for "messing around with white women" and (2) Rev. George Lee, shot in Humphreys County, Mississippi in 1955. Lee was the first black to register to vote in that county since Reconstruction

Murder in Mississippi (95 min, 1989)
In 1964, Mickey Schwerner moves to Mississippi with his new wife to help organize the registration of black voters during "Freedom Summer." They are immediately introduced to the ugly terrors of prejudice and racism. James Chaney, a young black Civil Rights worker is Mickey's constant companion and escort around Mississippi. They are joined by Andrew Goodman on a fateful visit to a neighboring county where they are detained, terrorized and finally murdered by white segregationists.

Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property

Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power (53, 2005 CA Newsreel)
Robert F. Williams was the forefather of the Black Power movement and broke dramatic new ground by internationalizing the African American struggle. Negroes with Guns is not only an electrifying look at an historically erased leader, but also provides a thought-provoking examination of Black radicalism and resistance and serves as a launching pad for the study of Black liberation philosophies. Insightful interviews with historian Clayborn Carson, biographer Timothy Tyson, Julian Bond, and a first person account by Mabel Williams, Robert’s wife, bring the story to life.

Neshoba: The Price of Freedom
Neshoba is an award winning documentary film about events and attitudes in Neshoba County, Mississippi, 40 years after the 1964 Mississippi civil rights workers murders. Neshoba explores the history and changing racial attitudes of Neshoba County, Mississippi four decades after the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner during Freedom Summer. The film captures the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, who granted the filmmakers "extraordinary access"

New Orleans Black Indians (30 minutes, 1994)
This case study in the arts explores the blend of American Indian tribes of New Orleans as they carry out a century-old tradition of participation in the pre-Lenten Mardi Gras revelry, a celebration that began in the 1880s. Focuses on the distinctive folk art and their social significance. From the Faces of Culture Series

Never Lose Sight of Freedom

New Orleans Black Indians: A Case Study in the Arts (30 min, 1994)
explores the blend of American Indians and blacks that comprise the Black Indian tribes of New Orleans as they carry out a century-old tradition of participation in the pre-Lenten Mardi Gras revelry, a celebration that began in the 1880's. It describes the origins of the tribes as well as Mardi Gras, and focuses on the distinctive folk art features of the celebration — including the songs, dances and particularly the elaborate costumes — which hold great social significance are a form of artistic expression for the Black Indians. The program includes comments by several of the participants in which they express the historic symbolism and intense relationships expressed in the celebration.

No Easy Walk (V.4 of Eyes on the Prize) (55 min, 1987)
This program places the issue of civil rights into a broad historical context, describing the growing commitment of activists to nonviolent tactics. This video captures a time when many people chose sides in the struggle and paid the highest price. The civil rights struggle became a “mass movement” during this period. Federal policy shifted in response to the marches and demonstrations. This program highlights the involvement of the federal government and various political tactics utilized.

No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger

The Oil Factor
This documentary examines the human cost and the geo-political issues at stake in America's "War on Terror" both in Iraq and Afghanistan

Once Upon a Time when We Were Colored (113 min, 1996)
This film relates the story of a tightly connected Afro-American community informally called Colored Town where the inhabitants live and depend on each other in a world where racist oppression is everywhere, as told by a boy called Cliff who spent his childhood there. Despite this, we see the life of the community in all its joys and sorrows, of those that live there while others decide to leave for a better life north. For those remaining, things come to a serious situation when one prominent businessman is being muscled out by a white competitor using racist intimidation. In response, the community must make the decision of whether to submit meekly like they always have, or finally fight for their rights.

Our Friend Martin (60 min, 1998)
This animated time-travel adventure features a stellar cast and is a delight for kids and adults alike. When Matt, a black teenager, has to go on a class field trip to the museum of Martin Luther King Jr., he thinks that he'd rather play baseball. But the trip turns into an exciting adventure when he and his best friend, Randy, who's white, are sent back in time to meet Dr. King. The story is also remarkably moving, as Matt and Randy learn what Dr. King did for humanity, and come to see him as a real person, not a historical figure. Matt and Randy experience segregation firsthand when they aren't allowed to eat on a train together. Together, they witness the bus boycott, the Birmingham riots, and the "I Have a Dream" speech. They discuss the theme of "non-violent resistance" with their new friend Martin and the work of Ghandi in India. As King tells Matt, "We must meet hate with love. It will take time, but somebody's got to start." Authentic historical footage blended with animation make this an excellent choice for teaching kids about the legacy of Dr. King.

Panther

Paul Robeson (118 min, 1988)
James Earl Jones gives the performance of a lifetime in this one-man-show as singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson, whose controversial political views ended his career prematurely. Paul Robeson was a man of extraordinary versatility and achieved distinction as both a scholar and an athlete before he became an internationally-honored concert artist, and stage and screen actor, in the 1930s and 40s. His life took a darker turn in the late 40s when he repeatedly spoke out against racial injustice and defended the Soviet Union (at the height of the Cold War). As a result, he was virtually blacklisted from the entertainment industry. His passport was revoked and his concerts were cancelled. His dazzling career was shattered. Only towards the end of his life did he resume public appearances and his fame began to revive. He died in 1976. James Earl Jones is outstanding, with only a few props and a bare stage.

Paul Robeson: Here I Stand (117, 1999)
If Paul Robeson (1898-1976) is remembered at all these days, it's most likely as the booming baritone on the definitive version of "Ol' Man River." But Robeson, as this serious, nearly two-hour 1999 documentary makes plain, was a great deal more than that. A world-renowned singer and actor, athlete, orator, activist, socialist, and patriot, he was most likely the most famous black man in the world in the mid-20th century. Robeson's conscience was indefatigable; he wasn't always right, but he never backed down from his enemies, principally imperialism and "conservative capitalism." He paid a heavy price, from ostracism to outright persecution, for maintaining his principles. Here I Stand details all of it, with the usual interviews and film clips highlighted by a great deal of footage (performances, interviews, speeches) of Robeson himself. This fascinating story of a great man's life and work also includes a discography, filmography, and complete chronology.

The People Speak

The Promised Land
"The Promised Land" is a 1995 BBC series about the migration of African Americans from the rural South to the industrialized North, Chicago. Vol. 1 is "Take Me to Chicago," Vol. 2 is "A Dream Deferred," and Vol. 3 is "Strong Men Keep A-comin' On." Vols. 1 and 2 are each divided into 2 parts.

Take me to Chicago (V.1 of The Promised Land) (90 min, 1995)
From Jim Crow laws to the advent of the mechanical cotton picker – rural Southern blacks had plenty of reasons to listen to the traveling blues musicians with their siren songs of far-off Chicago and the promise of a better, freer life. Former Mississippi sharecroppers tell of being forced to use the company store and being cheated on their wages; survival was difficult and getting ahead was impossible. By the 1940's, with a slump in the cotton market and the invention of the mechanical cotton picker, sharecroppers were looking to the North for work. Workers who'd made $6 a week in Mississippi could earn $25 in Chicago. They also could look forward to a freedom they had never known: as poet Sterling Plumpp tells it, "The white man wasn't watching you every minute." He then adds, "and there was music."
A Dream Deferred (V.2 of The Promised Land) (90 min, 1995)
A rural people becomes an urban one. With so many arriving every day, Chicago's south side became an overcrowded slum. Many of the worst buildings had to be torn down. The housing authority tried to move 2 black families into a white suburb, and 10,000 whites rioted; bullets were fired into the homes of the new arrivals. So segregation continued; by the mid-sixties, Chicago was the most segregated city in the country. Many of those interviewed say that Chicago was worse than the South. Martin Luther King came in 1966 and was invited to meet with Mayor Richard M. Daley. His intention was to wage a "full-scale assault" on segregation: "if you can crack Chicago, you can crack the world." There was a march in which King and others presented their demands to Mayor Daley. The next day, which was hot, there were riots when police shut off the fire hydrants. Now both Daley and King were challenged by a new voice: the youth of the ghettoes. When king was killed, more riots destroyed whole neighborhoods.
Strong Men Keep A-comin' On: The Walls of Jericho (V.3 of The Promised Land) (90 min, 1995)

Race: The Power of an Illusion (3 x 55 min, 2003)
The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" peoples - has became so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that's exactly what this provocative, new three-hour series by California Newsreel claims. Race - The Power of an Illusion questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth. Yet race still matters. Just because race doesn't exist in biology doesn't mean it isn't very real, helping shape life chances and opportunities.

Episode 1- The Difference Between Us examines the contemporary science - including genetics - that challenges our common sense assumptions that human beings can be bundled into three or four fundamentally different groups according to their physical traits.
Episode 2- The Story We Tell uncovers the roots of the race concept in North America, the 19th century science that legitimated it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the western imagination. The episode is an eye-opening tale of how race served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as "natural."
Episode 3- The House We Live In asks, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race resides not in nature but in politics, economics and culture. It reveals how our social institutions "make" race by disproportionately channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.
By asking, What is this thing called 'race'?, a question so basic it is rarely asked, Race - The Power of an Illusion helps set the terms that any further discussion of race must first take into account. Ideal for human biology, anthropology, sociology, American history, American studies, and cultural studies.

Rebels with a Cause (109 min, 2000)
Deftly charting the sweeping socio- political changes of the Sixties that began with the Civil Rights movement and culminated with angry protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam, REBELS WITH A CAUSE is told through the eyes of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Begun in 1960 with a handful of members and high ideals, SDS became a nationally powerful antiwar organization with over 100,000 members. But in 1970 the group began to disintegrate amidst internal conflict and government counterintelligence crackdowns. In the aftermath, some went militant as the ill-fated Weather Underground; others channeled their activism through prominent careers as journalists, politicians and professors. Mixing eloquent contemporary testimony from SDS members such as writer/professor Todd Gitlin, Senator Tom Hayden and NPR commentator Juan Gonzalez with scintillating archival footage from the front lines of the movement, Helen Garvy's REBELS WITH A CAUSE chronicles the values, motivations and actions of a generation that lost its innocence-and helped change America.

Reconstruction – The Second Civil War (2 hours, 2005)
Spanning the years from 1863 to 1877, this dramatic mini-series recounts the tumultuous post-Civil War years. America was grappling with rebuilding itself, with bringing the South back into the Union, and with how best to offer citizenship to former slaves. >Stories of key political players in Washington are interwoven with those of ordinary people caught up in the turbulent social and political struggles of Reconstruction.

Recount

The Return of the Secaucus Seven (107 min, 1980)
The "Secaucus 7" of the film's title are seven friends who, during their college days, were arrested in New Jersey on their way to a protest in Washington. The film takes place ten years after all that, as the friends gather at the home of Mike and Katie, now schoolteachers, in New Hampshire, bringing with them old problems and new: Maura has left Jeff and seeks consolation with his best friend, J.T.; J.T., arguably the least successful of the friends, finally gets the courage to move to L.A. to start his career as a songwriter; Irene brings her new boyfriend along, hoping he'll like and be liked by her friends, expecting them to challenge him for his more-conservative politics; and more.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
A Documentary that provides a comprehensive look at race relations in American between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement
Volume I: 1865-1896
Volume II: 1896-1917
Volume III: 1917-1940
Volume IV: 1940-1954

The Road to Brown (56 min, 1990 CA Newsreel)
The Road to Brown tells the story of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling as the culmination of a brilliant legal assault on segregation that launched the Civil Rights movement. It is also a moving and long overdue tribute to a visionary but little known black lawyer, Charles Hamilton Houston, "the man who killed Jim Crow." The Road to Brown plunges us into the nightmare world of Jim Crow that robbed former slaves of the rights granted by the 14th and 15th Amendments. Under the "separate but equal" doctrine of the Supreme Court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, black citizens were denied the right to vote, to attend white schools, to get sick in white hospitals or to be buried in white cemeteries. Those who objected were liable to be lynched. Moving from slavery to civil rights, The Road to Brown provides a concise history of how African-Americans finally won full legal equality under the Constitution. Its depiction of the interplay between race, law and history adds a crucial dimension to courses in U.S. History, Black Studies, Constitutional Law, Law & Society, Social Movements and Government. It opens up a discussion of the true significance of the Brown v. Board decision on the path towards racial equality. The example of Charles Houston's persistence and determination will inspire today's students to take America further down the long road to social justice.

Road to Mississippi: Reclaiming Our History (30 min, 2007)
The documentary was made by Public History Program graduate Pam Sporn’s students at Schomburg Satellite Academy in direct response to the Hollywood film Mississippi Burning. The students’ documentary focused on exploring their own attempts to understand racism and the Civil Rights Movement first through their own experience and scholarly research, and then through deeply analyzing and questioning the images of white racism and black response that Hollywood offers in such movies as Mississippi Burning.

Roots (6 x 90 min, 1977)
The Roots saga is the story of an African boy kidnapped from his homeland by slave traders and brought to the United States. Each tape traces the descendants of Kunte Kinte through one hundred years of American history from the Old South through the 1920s and ‘30s. Central to the series is one family’s struggle for dignity and real freedom through unbelievable odds. For viewers young and old, of every race and creed, Roots is a modern classic – a reminder of our common American heritage.

Rosa Parks: Modern Day Heroine (2004)
The documentary starts off with the narrator asking the question, "What is Heroism?" We are then shown a number of historical individuals, both black and white, that made their marks in history. The final person mentioned is Rosa Parks and we are ready to hear her own story.
We are given a history of Rosa and the events that led up to her refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white male passenger in December of 1955. This led to the involvement of the Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy and the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa's voice gives us some of the narration of the events and is supplemented by the wonderfully stirring musical score by Michael Gonzales. Included with the DVD is a "Study Guide" that teacher's can use with their students, after they have viewed the documentary.

The Rosa Parks Story (97 min, 2002)
America, 1955. Her act of courage changed the world. But how it changed her life has never been told... until now. The story of the civil rights heroine whose refusal to obey racial bus segregation was just one of her acts in her fight for justice.
Or: Freedom Song (2000) The story of the Civil-Rights Movement as seen through the eyes of a teenage Owen Walker growing up in bigotry laden Mississippi in the 1960s at a time when Jim Crow segregation laws were legal. Based on accounts of actual Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee members.

Rosewood (142 min, 1997)
A shameful chapter in American history is powerfully dramatized in Rosewood. And while the massacre that occurred in the nearly all-black town of Rosewood, Florida, in 1922 cannot compare in scale to the Nazi holocaust, it potently illustrates the same issues of racism and inherited intolerance that percolate at every level of human existence. An estimated 40 to 150 blacks were killed in Rosewood by an all-white lynch mob from the neighboring town of Sumner, where a white woman falsely claimed she'd been assaulted by a black man. The resulting mayhem ignited a tinderbox of resentment toward the flourishing citizens of Rosewood, and those few who survived were so traumatized that they remained silent until the truth was revealed by an investigative journalist in 1982.

Ruby Bridges (? min, 1998)
This well-conceived made-for-television Disney movie brings the pain and difficulty of desegregation to life for a generation of kids to whom the 1960s is ancient history. Young Chaz Monet plays Ruby, who in real life walked up those Southern school steps with armed guards barely shielding her from the hate-filled epithets white adults hurled at her as she single-handedly desegregated the institution. Penelope Ann Miller plays her Yankee teacher--actually a tutor, since no white kids will share her classroom. Kevin Pollak plays the psychiatrist who donates his time to help her deal with the trauma, but won't eat her mother's food. This 89-minute film offers surprisingly complex portraits of many of the adult characters and an admirably frank look at the less-than-positive reaction from her own community. Even her father (Michael Beach) waivers in resolution, especially when his white boss fires him. Superior acting, writing, and production mark this look at one of the uglier periods in American social history and the little girl who helped the country take a giant step in the right direction. Somewhat scary situations and use of racial slurs make parental guidance advisable for young children.

Scandalize my Name (54 min, 2004)
Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist examines the way Red Scare politics was used to impede the emergence of African-Americans as full participants in the political, social and cultural aspects of post-war American life. Because television was born in this era, and adopted the political attitudes of the time, the story is told through the confrontation of African-American performers with blacklists, loyalty oaths and discrimination in casting. Hosted by three-time Academy Award® nominee Morgan Freeman, Scandalize My Name is brought to life by African-American directors, actors and scholars who used their talents to advocate for social and cultural equality.

Scarred Justice: The 1968 Orangeburg Massacre

Selma, Lord, Selma (88 min, 1999)
It's 1965, segregation is still the order of the day in the South, Martin Luther King Jr. is leading voter-registration drives, and an Alabama schoolgirl gets caught up in the civil rights movement. Based on Sheyann Webb's memoir, this movie effectively serves as a Mississippi Burning for kids. As 11-year-old Sheyann (Eve's Bayou's Jurnee Smollet) learns more about the degradation of her people, so, too, will a whole new generation. But the lesson is far from pleasant. With the exception of earnest seminary student Jonathan Daniels (Mackenzie Astin), a Yankee who's come down South to help register blacks to vote, the white people seem cartoonishly hateful. It's sobering to realize that this behavior really happened and was either sanctioned or ignored by the government. Being forced to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar in order to vote and being gassed and beaten for marching are just some of the indignities Sheyann and her friends endure. Parents should know that two prominent characters are murdered. Inspiring, but a bit brutal, this Disney-produced film is appropriate for kids 7 and up with adult guidance.

Separate but Equal (193 min, 1991)
One of the most pivotal moments in 20th century American history is bracingly dramatized in Separate but Equal. In telling the detailed story of the Supreme Court's 1953 decision to abolish racial segregation in schools, this superb 1991 TV movie covers a broad spectrum of issues, never taking its "eyes off the prize" while its first-rate cast conveys the importance of the Supreme Court's ultimately unanimous decision. It was the culmination of a lengthy, legally complex, and morally compelling struggle that began humbly in South Carolina in 1950, where future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (Sidney Poitier)--then a New York-based lawyer for the NAACP--fought on behalf of an underprivileged black community facing social injustice despite the 1896 decision (Plessy v. Ferguson) that promised "separate but equal" treatment in the wake of slavery's abolition. Both direction and script by George Stevens Jr. are utterly conventional, but with so much dignity and fine acting in the service of a noble undertaking (including Burt Lancaster's final performance, as opposing counsel John W. Davis), Separate but Equal achieves a lasting importance of its own.

Shared History
An examination of the effects on families descended from enslaved people and slave owners of the Woodlands Plantations. The film examines how and why black and white families of unequal status consciously or unconscously maintained relationships through the generations.

Short Documentaries on Civil Rights
Voices In America
AHistory of US
MLK: The Making of a Dream

The Sixties – The Years That Shaped a Generation (115 min, 2005)
It was a time when a generation rebelled and lost its innocence. From the Vietnam War to the struggle for racial equality to the birth of a counter-culture explosion, the 1960s was a decade of change, experimentation and hope that transformed an entire nation. The two-hour documentary features revealing interviews with the prominent figures of the era including: Barbara Ehrenreich, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesse Jackson, Tom Hayden, Arlo Guthrie, Henry Kissinger, Norman Mailer, Robert McNamara, Ed Meese III and Bobby Seale.

Slam

Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters (95 min, 2005)
This 2-hour special features stories about slave catchers and slave resistance, from the colonial era through the Civil War and its aftermath. Slavery was built on a brutal system of slave policing--enforced by armed community patrols, paid slave catchers, and federal law. And most of us think that slave catchers were always successful. But the bounty hunters' bloodhounds occasionally lost against the intelligence and courage of the enslaved. In the North, slave catchers were sometimes defeated by an organized--and armed--free black community. Using recreations, archival material, and scholar interviews, we hear stories of actual slave catchers and fleeing slaves that have never before been portrayed on film. Through the hunter/prey lens of time, these stories demonstrate that within the darkness, there was also light. For even when freedom seemed no more than an illusive dream, the enslaved and their supporters struggled for the day when America could be America...for all its people.

Slavery and the Making of America (4 hours, 2005)
Underscoring how slavery impacted the growth of this country's Southern and Northern states; the series examines issues still relevant today. The variety of cultures from which the slaves originated provided the budding states with a multitude of skills that had a dramatic effect on the diverse communities. From joining the British in the Revolutionary War, to fleeing to Canada, to joining rebel communities in the U.S. the slaves sought freedom in many ways, ultimately having a far-reaching effect on the new hemisphere they were forced to inhabit.

Social Action Studies: Teaching the Amistad Case

Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson's American Journey

The Spook Who Sat by the Door (102 min, 2004)
The controversial best selling novel now becomes a shocking screen reality. Plot Outline: A black man plays Uncle Tom in order to gain access to CIA training, then uses that knowledge to plot a new American Revolution.
A White U.S. Senator, looking to improve his standing among Black voters, sponsors a drive for the CIA to recruit Black agents. However, everyone is graded on a curve, so all are condemned to flunk...save for soft-spoken Dan Freeman. After going through grueling training in self-defense, guerilla warfare and underground operations, he is recruited to be a "reproduction chief" (he runs a photocopier in the sub-basement), and serves the CIA as a token Black employee (the term "spook" used here is both a racial slur, and a slang term for a spy).
After 5 years, he leaves the CIA to work in his native Chicago for a social services agency...by day. By night, he's using his CIA training to teach a street gang to be the vanguard in an upcoming race war...

Standing on my Sisters’ Shoulders (60 min, 2002)
The documentary takes on the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi in the 1950’s and 60’s from the point of view of the courageous women who lived it – and emerged as its grassroots leaders. These women stood up and fought for the right to vote and the right to an equal education. They not only brought about change in Mississippi, but they altered the course of American history.
The Civil Rights movement brought forth many heroes, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks, who have been made famous by their commitment to the cause. Yet most of us have never heard of Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, Unita Blackwell, Mae Bertha Carter, or Victoria Gray Adams. But without the efforts of these women, the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi would not have been possible. In a state where lynching of black males was the highest in the nation, a unique opportunity for women emerged to become activists in the movement. This is their story of commitment, bravery and leadership in the face of a hostile and violent segregated society.
This documentary presents original interviews with many of the Civil Rights movement’s most remarkable women.

Strange Fruit (57 min, 2002)
Strange Fruit is the first documentary exploring the history and legacy of the Billie Holiday classic. This history of the song's evolution tells a dramatic story of America's radical past using one of the most influential protest songs ever written as its epicenter. The saga brings viewers face- to- face with the terror of lynching even as it spotlights the courage and heroism of those who fought for racial justice when to do so was to risk ostracism and livelihood if white - and death if Black. It examines the history of lynching, and the interplay of race, labor and the left, and popular culture as forces that would give rise to the Civil Rights Movement. While many people assume Strange Fruit was written by Billie Holiday herself, it actually began as a poem by a Jewish schoolteacher and union activist from the Bronx who later set it to music. Disturbed by a photograph of a lynching, the teacher wrote the stark verse and brooding melody about the horror of lynching under the pseudonym Lewis Allan in 1938.

Struggles in Steel (58 min, 1996)
The current angry debates around affirmative action too often ignore their historical roots: how prior to government intervention African Americans were confined to the most back-breaking, dangerous and low paid work. Struggles in Steel documents the shameful history of discrimination against black workers and one heroic campaign where they won equality on the job.
Together they interviewed more than 70 retired black steelworkers who tell heart-rending tales of struggles with the company, the union and white co-workers to break out of the black job ghetto. With Henderson as guide, they retrace a century of black industrial history - the use of blacks as strikebreakers against the all-white union during the 1892 Homestead Strike, the Great Migration of fieldworkers to the North in World War I, the racial divisions between workers during the Great Steel Strike of 1919 and the ultimate success of the CIO organizing drives of the 1930s.
An online facilitator guide is available for this title.

Take me to Chicago (V.1 of The Promised Land) (90 min, 1995)
From Jim Crow laws to the advent of the mechanical cotton picker – rural Southern blacks had plenty of reasons to listen to the traveling blues musicians with their siren songs of far-off Chicago and the promise of a better, freer life. Here is the greatest peace-time migration in history, seen through the eyes of those who lived it.

Talk to Me

10,000 Black Men Named George (95 min, 2002)
When the Great Depression struck America in the 1920s finding work was hard, but if you were poor and black it was virtually impossible.
Working as a porter for the Pullman Rail Company was an option, but it meant taking home a third as much as while employees and working some days for free. You could forget about being called by your real name--all black porters were simply called "George" after George Pullman, the first person to employ emancipated slaves.
Asa Philip Randolph, a black journalist and educated socialist trying to establish a voice for these forgotten workers agrees to fight for the Pullman porters' cause and form the first black union in America. Livelihoods and lives would be put at risk in the attempt to gain 10,000 signatures of men known only as "George." This is the true story of how a courageous leader came to be known as "the most dangerous man in America."

The Times of Harvey Milk

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth) Oaxaca story

The Underground Railroad (95 min, 1999)
The Underground Railroad was not really a railroad, nor was it always underground. It was an informal network of people and hiding places that helped slaves escape the American South. It extended from the South into the northern states, Canada, the western frontier, and even Cuba and the Caribbean. This documentary remembers the people, white and black, famous and almost-forgotten, who risked their fortunes and even their lives to resist the unjust institution of slavery. With dramatic re-creations of escapes and acts of selfless heroism, this moving account also chronicles the achievements of legendary abolitionist figures Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and William Lloyd Garrison.

Unnatural Causes
A contemporary documentary chronicaling and analyzing what makes us healthy and sick -- it is much more than genes, behavior and medical care. It includes the social, economic and physical environments in which we live.

The Untold Story of Emmett Till

Viva La Causa

Voting in America (ca 60 min, 2004)
A provocative collection of nine short films about why some people don't vote and how others are trying to change their minds. Voting in America takes you from an animated history of voting to voter registration in the Philadelphia jail system to a Navajo punk band's struggle to get out the vote.

The War at Home (100 min, 1979)
The War at Home is a moving story about America's turbulent mid-decades. It is a documentary of Madison, Wisconsin's infamous ROTC bombing, an event overshadowed by the Kent-State massacre. In 1969, after riots swept Madison, several students from University of Wisconsin Madison set off a bomb in the army's mathematics laboratory. They then proceeded to hijack a plane and drop a dud-bomb on the army's Badger ammunition plant in Baraboo, Wisconsin. The War at Home is the moving story of the anti-war riots leading up to the ROTC bombing, and the hunt for the suspects of the bombing.

We Shall Overcome (58 min, 1990)
We Shall Overcome became the anthem that set America marching towards racial equality. By tracing the sources of song, this pathbreaking film uncovers the diverse strands of social history which flowed together to form the Civil Rights movement.
Other films have chronicled the events and personalities of the Civil rights movement; We Shall Overcome goes directly to the unique vision which moved millions. As Bernice Reagon says, "Every time you hear the song...you're talking about people coming together, organizing, so they can transform their lives."

We Shall Not Be Moved

Weapons of Mass Deception

With All Deliberate Speed (120 Min, 2004)
History ignored is history repeated. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown Vs. Board of Education that the concept of "separate but equal" school segregation was unconstitutional. But in this landmark ruling, the Justices used a four-word phrase that many believe has delayed the process of change for over 50 years: "With All Deliberate Speed."
Direct Peter Gilbert explores the shocking history and legacy of the legal decision that tore our nation apart and still divides us today. Jeffrey Wright narrates this acclaimed documentary featuring stunning archive footage, powerful readings by Mekhi Phifer, Larenz Tate, Terry Kinney, and Alicia Keys, and revealing new interviews with the heroic men and women who fought - and still fight - the battle for racial equality in America.

A Woman Called Moses (200 min, 1978)
A film about the life and career of the African American abolitionist and slave escape leader, Harriet Tubman.

You Got to Move (87 min, 1985)
A documentary about personal and social transformation, YOU GOT TO MOVE records the progress of individuals who, together with Tennessee's legendary Highlander Folk School, founded by Myles Horton, have worked for union, civil, environmental, and women's rights in the South. The film takes us beyond the individual issues to the very process of social change and the evolution of leadership. At a time when so many people may feel powerless, this film joyfully announces people do count, that they can make a difference.
"Provocative and joyful... Highlander's work translates to the film in wonderful ways. YOU GOT TO MOVE vibrates with the energy of people who have found an inner strength. They are funny, tough, eloquent." - San Francisco Chronicle
"The film's impact is in its message: dedicated individuals have the power to create social change. Recommended for collections in Southern history and/or social activism."- Library Journal

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