Program Suggestions
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise focuses on the untold aspects of her life through never-before-seen footage, rare archival photographs and videos and her own words.
Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart profiles the author of Raisin In The Sun (the first-ever Black woman to author a play performed on Broadway), explores her complex life and influences that shaped her childhood, future art and activism.
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am is an artful and intimate meditation on the legendary Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author that examines her life, her works and the powerful themes she has confronted throughout her literary career.
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool- In 1959, Miles Davis was unlawfully assaulted and arrested by two New York police officers outside a jazz club he was performing in.
13th (Netflix): Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.
16 Shots (Showtime): Investigating the 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, and the cover-up that followed.
American Son (Netflix): An estranged couple reunite in a Florida police station to help find their missing teenage son.
Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (PBS): Filmmaker Stanley Nelson examines the rise of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and its impact on civil rights and American culture.
Burn Motherf*cker, Burn! (Showtime): A chronicle of how decades of troubled relations between the LAPD and the African-American community served as the prelude to the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
The Black Power Mixtape; 1967-1975 (Amazon): The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975 is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Göran Olsson, that examines the evolution of the Black Power movement in American society from 1967 to 1975 as viewed through Swedish journalists and filmmakers.
Clemency (Amazon): Years of carrying out death row executions are taking a toll on Warden Bernadine Williams. As she prepares for another one, Williams must confront the psychological and emotional demons that her job creates.
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (Netflix): Filmmakers re-examine the 1992 death of transgender legend Marsha P. Johnson, who was found floating in the Hudson River. Originally ruled a suicide, many in the community believe she was murdered.
Dear White People (Netflix): Based on the acclaimed film of the same name, this Netflix-original series follows a group of students of color at Winchester University, a predominantly white Ivy League college. The students are faced with a landscape of cultural bias, social injustice, misguided activism and slippery politics.
Fruitvale Station (Tubi): Flashbacks reveal the last day in Oscar's life, in which he accompanied his family and friends to San Francisco to watch fireworks on New Year's Eve, and, on the way back home, became swept up in an altercation with police that ended in tragedy.
The Hate U Give (Hulu with Cinemax): The uneasy balance between these worlds is soon shattered when she witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend at the hands of a police officer.
I Am Not Your Negro (Amazon): In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, "Remember This House." The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
If Beale Street Could Talk (Hulu): In early 1970s Harlem, daughter and wife-to-be Tish vividly recalls the passion, respect and trust that have connected her and her artist fiancé Alonzo Hunt, who goes by the nickname Fonny. Friends since childhood, the devoted couple dream of a future together, but their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit.
Just Mercy (Available on different digital platforms): After graduating from Harvard, Bryan Stevenson heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or those not afforded proper representation. One of his first cases is that of Walter McMillian, who is sentenced to die in 1987 for the murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite evidence proving his innocence.
King in the Wilderness (HBOMax/Hulu): A portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. during the last years of his life, from his part in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to his assassination in 1968.
Selma (Available on different digital platforms): Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally desegregated the South, discrimination was still rampant in certain areas, making it very difficult for blacks to register to vote.
Time: The Kalief Browder Story (Netflix): The criminal justice system tragically failed 16-year-old Kalief Browder, who spent three years in Rikers Island jail awaiting trial -- two of those years in solitary confinement -- after being arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack.
When They See Us (Netflix): In 1989 a jogger was assaulted and raped in New York's Central Park, and five young people were subsequently charged with the crime. The quintet, labeled the Central Park Five, maintained its innocence and spent years fighting the convictions, hoping to be exonerated.
