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DOCUMENTARIES
(Descriptions Taken From Vogue, Vox, and NPR)
13th
First ratified in 1865, the 13th Amendment prohibits slavery in the United States, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”. Ava DuVernay’s seminal 2016 documentary takes this loophole as its starting point – tracing the many ways it’s been hideously exploited from the Civil War onwards to maintain a racial hierarchy.
Available On: Amazon Prime
I Am Not Your Negro
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” In the 1970s, James Baldwin attempted to tell the story of America through the lives of three of his murdered friends – Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. – in a work to be titled Remember This House.
Available On: Amazon Prime
Time: The Kalief Browder Story
In the spring of 2010, members of the New York Police Department arrested 16-year-old Kalief Browder for allegedly stealing a backpack. Officers brought him to the precinct; questioned him for less than an hour; then charged him with robbery, grand larceny, and assault. Refusing a deal – which would have required him to plead guilty but allowed him to go home – Browder spent the next three years on Rikers Island, 700 days of which were spent in solitary confinement. He had more than 30 court dates in total. All charges against him were then dropped – with Browder ultimately committing suicide two years later as a direct result of the trauma.
Available On: Amazon Prime
The Black Power Mixtape consists primarily of videos shot for Swedish television between 1967 and 1975, capturing the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement; the shift away from Martin Luther King Jr’s nonviolent policies to a more militant approach; and the brutal oppression faced by the leaders of the Black Power movement.
Available On: Amazon Prime
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? began as a “live documentary” about one white filmmaker’s reckoning with his family’s racist pastAvailable On: Amazon PrimeWhose Streets?This documentary is “essentially about the Black Lives Matter uprisings in Ferguson, a record of the demonstrations. Its filmmakers [Sabaah Foloyan and Damon Davis], who were there on the ground, fashioned a very raw, boots-on-the-ground record of activism and community building in process.”Available On: Hulu, Amazon Prime
LA 92
LA 92 is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage — no talking heads needed. It's chilling to watch the unrest of nearly 30 years ago, as young people still take to the streets and shout, "No justice, no peace."
Available On: YouTube, Amazon Prime, Netflix
Teach Us All
Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are still segregated. Teach Us All explains why that is — school choice, residential segregation, biased admissions processes — and talks to advocates working for change. Interspersing interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, the documentary asks how far we've really come.Available On: NetflixBlack America Since MLK: And Still I RiseIn this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens.
Available On: Amazon Prime, YouTube
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise
In this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens.
Available On: Amazon Prime, YouTube
MOVIES
(Recommendations taken from Medium)
| The Hate U Give (Amazon Prime) |
| Just Mercy (Amazon Prime) (SWANK) |
| When They See Us (Netflix) |
| Selma (Amazon Prime) (SWANK) |
| Fruitvale Station (YouTube trailer) (SWANK) |
| Get Out (YouTube trailer) (SWANK) |
| If Beale Street Could Talk (YouTube trailer) (SWANK) |
| Loving (YouTube Trailer) (SWANK) |
| Black KKKlansman (YouTube trailer) (SWANK) |
| Hidden Figures (YouTube trailer) |
PODCASTS
(Descriptions Taken From NPR)
Floodlines from The Atlantic
An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Floodlines is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect.
1619 from The New York Times"
In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began." Hosted by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 audio series chronicles how Black people have been central to building American democracy, music, wealth and more.
Intersectionality Matters! from The African American Policy Forum
Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term "intersectionality," this podcast brings the academic term to life
Throughline from NPR
The past is never past. Every headline has a history. Join us every week as we go back in time to understand the present. These are stories you can feel and sounds you can see from the moments that shaped our world.Episodes to Check Out: "American Police," "Mass Incarceration" and "Milliken v. Bradley."
