H2: Black Lives
A history of racism in America from Reconstruction to the current day through real events and fiction. Progress (Reconstruction) and regress (Jim Crow) go hand in hand. The last film is a perfect place to start as it summarizes the journey. The connections between all the films reveal themselves as you proceed.
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- StarsMartha S. JonesAndia WinslowHenry Louis Gates Jr.A comprehensive and compelling history of the United States immediately following the Civil War.A brief period of gains during Reconstruction, led by Thaddeus Stevens. Black men ran and won seats in government. But then a new era of Jim Crow and segregation.
- DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishMae MarshHenry B. WalthallThe Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.White supremacy propaganda using the new medium of film. Lauded by Woodrow Wilson, who re-segregated the Federal Government and held a viewing at the White House. Responsible for the "black man rapes white woman" trope (played by a white actor in blackface, no less) and the second iteration of the KKK, including the burning of crosses, which KKK 1.0 never did.
- DirectorBestor CramSusan GrayStarsBob BellingerDavid BlightVincent BrownThe story of William Monroe Trotter, the nearly forgotten editor of a Boston black newspaper who tried to ban the controversial film The Birth of a Nation (1915).The first mass Black protests, which foreshadowed the 60s and Black Lives, were led by William Monroe Trotter in Boston, against Birth of a Nation. Trotter had previously met with Woodrow Wilson, protesting the re-segregation of the federal government under Wilson's presidency. Trotter was the only Black student in his high school class, was valedictorian and class president. Also the only Black student in his Harvard class, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
- DirectorVictor FlemingGeorge CukorSam WoodStarsClark GableVivien LeighThomas MitchellA sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.Scarlett, the petulant child who refuses to evolve, pines for and returns to "Tara." She is the embodiment of the SOUTH. The rest of America waits for the child to grow up and hopes it doesn't come to "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.' And in modern times, anyone who refuses to evolve, defends slavery and hoists confederate flags is simply: SCARLETT.
- DirectorJack ClaytonStarsRobert RedfordMia FarrowBruce DernA Midwesterner becomes fascinated with his nouveau riche neighbor, who obsesses over his lost love.Daisy's husband, Tom, the white supremacist obliquely mentions "The Rising Tide of Color" by Lothrop Stoddard, who propounded white supremacy and praised the Nazis. The feared "intermixing of the races" goes beyond black and white, but also extends to lower/working class whites. Tom sees uppity Gatsby as belonging to that class, as represented by Myrtle & George, who live in the "Valley of Ashes." Yet Tom has an affair with Myrtle while also abusing her...
- DirectorRobert MulliganStarsGregory PeckJohn MegnaFrank OvertonAtticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.The "black man rapes white woman" trope rears its ugly head again. Black people still have no agency here and ironically, it isn't Tom Robinson that is the "Mockinbird that shouldn't be killed," but Boo Radley, who indirectly and unwittingly avenges Tom's unjust conviction and killing.
- DirectorKeith BeauchampStarsMamie Till MobleyWheeler ParkerSimeon WrightNever-before-seen testimony is included in this documentary on Emmett Louis Till, who, in 1955, was brutally murdered after he whistled at a white woman.This brutal murder of an innocent boy for the supposed crime of whistling at a white woman, which itself is disputed. The rigged sham trial, enabled by the white woman's testimony, meant the perpetrators went scot-free. It precipitated the civil rights movement, in part because Emmett's mother Mamie exposed the casket for all to see.
- DirectorReginald HudlinStarsChadwick BosemanJosh GadKate HudsonThe story of Thurgood Marshall, the crusading lawyer who would become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, as he battles through one of his career-defining cases.One of Justice Marshall's seminal cases when he worked on behalf of the NAACP. He defends a Joseph Spell, falsely accused of...you guessed it, the rape of a white woman. The trial exposes the sex was consensual. A key scene is Marshall counseling Spell to defend his innocence in court and remove the yoke of a slave mindset resigned to his fate.
- DirectorStanley NelsonStarsRaymond ArsenaultGenevieve HoughtonGordon CareyThe story of the Civil Rights Movement interstate busing protest campaign.The story of Black and white protestors who fought for the right to travel on interstate buses unhindered through the south. After news got out about the abuse endured by the first wave, a second and much larger wave came from all over the country, only to accumulate in the infamous Parchman Farm Mississippi State Penitentiary.
- DirectorAva DuVernayStarsDavid OyelowoCarmen EjogoOprah WinfreyA chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.The famous March on Selma to ensure Black voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after a confederate. Soon to be renamed the John Lewis Bridge, after the civil rights icon who marched across it?!
- DirectorLoki MulhollandStarsLuvaughn BrownDion DiamondEric EtheridgeThe amazing true story of one white Southern woman's courage to choose her convictions and join the Civil Rights Movement. By the time she was 19, Joan Trumpauer was shot at, attacked, and put on death row but that's just the beginning of her remarkable journey to help change the world. Heralded as an unsung hero but disowned by her family, Joan takes us on an incredible journey of her life in the Civil Rights Movement and the power of the human spirit to persevere against the world. Shot over the course of a year in six states, 'An Ordinary Hero' is the only complete story of Joan Trumpauer and includes interviews with scholars, authors, journalists and those who fought along side this courageous woman.A southern white woman who participated in major civil rights events in the 60s including desegregating a Tougaloo College, freedom rides and counter sitins.
- DirectorGöran Hugo OlssonStarsAngela DavisStokely CarmichaelBobby SealeFootage shot by a group of Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power Movement in the United States is edited together by a contemporary Swedish filmmaker.Powerful interviews of civil rights fighters, including Angela Davis.
- DirectorJay RoachStarsBryan CranstonAnthony MackieMelissa LeoLyndon B. Johnson becomes the President of the United States in the chaotic aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination, and spends his first year in office fighting to pass the Civil Rights Act.The collaborative and antagonistic relationship between MLK and LBJ, who worked together to pass civil rights legislation.
- DirectorGeorge NolfiStarsAnthony MackieSamuel L. JacksonNicholas HoultIn the 1960s, two African-American entrepreneurs hire a working-class white man to pretend to be the head of their business empire while they pose as a janitor and chauffeur.Two pioneers, who worked to economically empower Blacks.
- DirectorNorman JewisonStarsSidney PoitierRod SteigerWarren OatesA black Philadelphia police detective is mistakenly suspected of a local murder while passing through a racially hostile Mississippi town, and after being cleared is reluctantly asked by the police chief to investigate the case.Black people start to take their rightful place in society, much to the chagrin and resistance of many. In this case, Poitier's character, Mr. Tibbs, is a top homicide detective from Philadelphia, who helps solve a murder in a southern racist town. Two incredible scenes: Poitier slaps back the white cotton plantation owner who slaps him for having the gall to question him; when derisively asked, "what do they call you up there?" he responds, "They call me MR. TIBBS!"
- StarsOprah WinfreyNasCornel WestDocumentary with host Henry Louis Gates Jr. chronicles the triumphs, struggles and contradictions of the last fifty years in African American History.The gains made by certain individuals in Black America, enable the willful ignorance (including by those successful people) of the ongoing racial divide and problems.
- DirectorAva DuVernayStarsMelina AbdullahMichelle AlexanderCory BookerAn in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.The use of the justice system to systematically incarcerate and kill black men. The privatization of incarceration goes back to the Jim Crow era, as also seen by Scarlett's use of prisoners for her lumber factory in Gone with the Wind.
- DirectorDestin Daniel CrettonStarsMichael B. JordanJamie FoxxBrie LarsonWorld-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner.Bryan Stephenson picks up where Thurgood Marshall left off in defending Walter McMillan, a black man on death row for a murder he didn't commit. Fact and fiction merge as the town of Monroeville is where Harper Lee (Mockingbird) grew up.
- DirectorRaoul PeckStarsSamuel L. JacksonJames BaldwinMartin Luther KingWriter James Baldwin tells the story of race in modern America with his unfinished novel, Remember This House.Baldwin was the comprehensive steward and multi-layered spokesperson of Black Lives in America, far beyond the fight for rights. In this doc, he reflects on the journey of Black Americans through the lives of Medger Evers, Malcolm X, MLK and other leaders in the civil rights movement - all of whom he knew personally.
- DirectorKen BurnsSarah BurnsDavid McMahonStarsAntron McCrayKevin RichardsonKharey WiseA documentary that examines the 1989 case of five black and Latino teenagers who were convicted of raping a white woman in Central Park. After having spent between 6 and 13 years each in prison, a serial rapist confessed to the crime.The most notorious modern day abuse of the justice system in NYC, where 5 Black boys where arrested, forced to self-incriminate, convicted and jailed. Donald Trump took out an ad in major newspapers demanding reinstatement of the death penalty.
- CreatorAva DuVernayStarsAsante BlackkCaleel HarrisEthan HerisseFive teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park. Based on the true story.A retelling of the story of the Central Park Five, including the brutal incarceration of Korey Wise, who spent brutal years in adult jail, many of those in solitary confinement. He was 14 when he entered the system and 26 when he was exonerated and released based on a confession and DNA match, the latter of which was available at the time and matched NONE of the boys.
- DirectorJohn RidleyStarsDaryl GatesTom BradleyDamian 'Football' WilliamsAn in-depth look at the culture of Los Angeles in the ten years leading up to the 1992 uprising that erupted after the verdict of police officers cleared of beating Rodney King.Rodney King is mercilessly beaten by LAPD gang. The first of these incidents captured on tape and widely shared, it alerts America to the abuse rendered to Blacks by police.
- DirectorRyan CooglerStarsMichael B. JordanMelonie DiazOctavia SpencerThe story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008.Police murder of Oscar Grant at the BART Fruitvale Station.
- DirectorBrian Tetsuro IvieStarsGeorge Howard AdamsA.R. BernardNadine CollierAn inside look at the tragic event that took place in Charleston, South Carolina at the Emanuel AME Church, where 9 innocent churchgoers were gunned down.The murder of Black parishioners at the Brother Emanuel Church by a white supremacist.
- DirectorGeorge KunhardtPeter W. KunhardtTeddy KunhardtStarsBryan StevensonChristy StevensonHoward StevensonA look at how Alabama attorney Bryan Stevenson struggles to create more fairness in the legal system.The ongoing struggle and the hope for change through confronting the Truth of America's racist history and the reconciliation that can follow, as it as in many other countries. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which includes markers for lynching sites, is a step toward that outcome.
- DirectorLisa CortesLiz GarbusStarsCarolyn AbramsRobert AbramsStacey AbramsThe documentary takes a look at the history, and current activism against voter suppression; barriers to voting that most people don't even know is a threat to their basic rights as citizens of the United States.
- DirectorYoruba RichenStarsYoruba RichenMarquette FolleyKaren Allen BaxterA deeper look into the real story of Victor H. Green's "The Negro Motorist Green Book" during the Jim Crow era and beyond.
- DirectorRegina KingStarsKingsley Ben-AdirEli GoreeAldis HodgeA fictional account of one incredible night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered discussing their roles in the Civil Rights Movement and cultural upheaval of the 60s.
- DirectorSpike LeeDanya TaymorStarsJon Michael HillJulian ParkerRyan HallahanTwo young men pass the time dreaming of the promised land.
- StarsJeff McNealJeffrey WrightBill CampFollows Abraham Lincoln's complex journey to end slavery with insights from journalists, educators and Lincoln scholars, including rare archival materials, that offer a more nuanced look.