A Few Documentaries on African American History

[Inori]

You'd probably really dig "Boss: The Black Experience in Business". Shows a few stories of POC making it during segregation and their successful descendants keeping their teachings alive, through programs to help other POC.

You were right.. that Boss: The Black Experience in Business was excellent!

Frustrating as fuck... but excellent on the knowledge. Thanks again fam

 

[LurkerSix]

Thats it for now, but here another Doc that is about to drop, that you might also find interesting.

Always in Season | ITVS

An exploration of the history of lynching in America that tracks the mob violence from its origins to the death of a teenager in 2014. | ITVS

itvs.org

Official Trailer for Important 'Always in Season' Doc About Lynching | FirstShowing.net

"If you knew in your heart & your mind that someone took your child's life, how far would you go to get to the truth?" PBS has debuted an official trailer for an indie documentary titled Always in Season, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. After winning a Special...

www.firstshowing.net

(trailer)

update. Spoke about this last year and its out now.

Always in Season

follows the tragedy of African American teenager Lennon Lacy, who in August 2014, was found hanging from a swing set in Bladenboro, North Carolina. His death was ruled a suicide by law enforcement, but Lennon’s mother, Claudia, her family, and many others believe Lennon was lynched. The film chronicles Claudia’s quest to learn the truth and takes a closer look at the lingering impact of more than a century of lynching African-Americans and connects this form of historic terrorism to racial violence today.

(trailer)


(to watch, use these links)

Always in Season | Documentary | Independent Lens | PBS

Always in Season explores recent grassroots efforts to acknowledge the victims of lynching, repair the damage, and reconcile in four U.S. communities.

www.pbs.org

Independent Lens | Always in Season | Season 21 | Episode 11 | PBS

A haunting exploration of lynching and racial violence in America.

www.pbs.org

Also heres another one

Cooked: Survival by Zip Code | Independent Lens | PBS

Cooked: Survival by Zip Code tells the story of the tragic 1995 Chicago heatwave, the most traumatic in U.S. history, in which 739 citizens died over the course of just a single week, most of them poor, elderly, and African American. Cooked is a story about life, death, and the politics of crisis in an American city that asks the question: Was this a one-time tragedy, or an appalling trend?

(trailers)


(Full video)

Cooked: Survival by Zip Code | Documentary | Independent Lens | PBS

In the summer of 1995, Chicago experienced an unthinkable disaster, when extremely high humidity and a layer of heat-retaining pollution drove the heat index up to more than 126 degrees. Cooked: Survival by Zip Code tells the story of this tragic heatwave, the most traumatic in U.S. history, in...

www.pbs.org

 

[LurkerSix]

I watched this lastnight and holllyyy shit. They lied, set these young men up, got caught and they jury STILL convicted them, WTF. There were so many twists in this story that I dont even wanna spoil it all. But Thurgood Marshall was even an attorney on this case.

The Groveland Four | PBS

In 1949, four black men in Groveland, Fl are accused of rape & a civil rights case ensues.

www.pbs.org

July, 1949: Four young black men are accused of rape by a 17-year-old woman in rural Lake County, Florida. The case of “The Groveland Four” included a race riot, torture, multiple murders, two trials and a Supreme Court reversal. Though widely covered by the national press, the case has been largely forgotten... even though it helped lay a foundation for the Civil Rights Movement.

(trailer)


(full video)

The Groveland Four | PBS

In 1949, 4 young black men are wrongly accused of rape; a major civil rights case ensues.

www.pbs.org

[An update]
Last year the Florida government officially pardoned them (like 70 years later)and this year a memorial was set up in Lake county



(This 3rd link is a watch for 2 reasons. First is, 2 of the news anchors was looking type thick. The second, is they called the accusers son and daughter to ask them what they think about the monument. They sound exactly what you imagine them to sound like.)



I'mma throw in one more

February One-The Story of the Greensboro Four

February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four

is a 2003 documentary film by Rebecca Cerese and Steven Channing. Nationally broadcast on Independent Lens on PBS, it tells the story of The Greensboro Four, four young college freshman, Joseph McNeil, David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Ezell Blair, Jr. now Jibreel Khazan, who staged a sit-in at Woolworth's in 1960 to protest segregation practices. Based largely on first hand accounts and rare archival footage, the documentary film February One documents one volatile winter in Greensboro that not only challenged public accommodation customs and laws in North Carolina, but served as one of the blueprints for the nonviolent protests that occurred across the South and the nation during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
It won an award of excellence at the Global Peace Film Festival in 2004, Best Documentary Film at the Carolina Film and Video Festival, and the Human Rights Award at the RiverRun Film Festival. The documentary has also played at the King Center in Atlanta, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the National Archives in Washington, DC among other places.

(trailer)


(Full video. You have to login to view it or you can just type "nsfw" infront of the youtube url & hit enter to see it. Like this "nsfwyoutube")


(more info on the four men & some other info)

Independent Lens . FEBRUARY ONE . The Greensboro Four | PBS

Independent Lens . FEBRUARY ONE . The Film | PBS

 

[Hater Hearst Helmsley]

Damn good thread

 

[LurkerSix]

Figured I'd update with this.

John Lewis - Get in the Way

Follow the journey of civil rights hero, congressman and human rights champion John Lewis. At the Selma March, Lewis came face-to-face with club-wielding troopers and exemplified non-violence.

trailer


Video

John Lewis - Get in the Way | PBS

Follow the journey of civil rights hero, congressman and human rights champion John Lewis.

www.pbs.org

Amazon product ASIN B06X9FH2FM

 

[The Lonious Monk]

I always heard the name Shirley Chisolm coming up. I never really knew much about what she did. Pretty interesting story though.



This topic has come up quite a bit over the past few months, so worth sharing a documentary about it.



I remember seeing this documentatry about the Buffalo Soldiers on TV when I was younger. It's a pretty interesting, little talked about part of our story.

 

[LurkerSix]

The " The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. " series is on PBS today. It started at 12 pm but the episodes will be on until 9 pm. Check it out if you want to watch it on tv or I guess DVR it.

Should be able to google to see that channel for your state, if thes links dont work for you.

PBS Member Stations | PBS

Find information about your local PBS Member Station.

www.pbs.org

Schedule - WPBT South Florida PBS

WPBT South Florida PBS schedule page includes schedules for WPBT, Create, South Florida PBS Kids, show previews and popular episodes.

www.wpbt2.org

Also checked their website and they have the series up again on the website for free, until the beginning of September.

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross | PBS

This series chronicles the full sweep of African American history, from the origins of slavery on the African continent right up to today when America remains a nation deeply divided by race.

www.pbs.org

.

 

[King of GA]

Thread should be permanently stickied.

 

[LurkerSix]

This one is 2 hours long.

Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America |

Discover how the advent of the automobile brought new mobility and freedom for African Americans but also exposed them to discrimination and deadly violence, and how that history resonates today.

Trailer


Full video

Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America | PBS

Discover how the advent of the car brought African Americans new freedom but also dangers.

www.pbs.org

 

[LurkerSix]

Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

The rich history of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) began before the end of slavery, flourished in the 20th century, and profoundly influenced the course of the nation for over 150 years — yet remains largely unknown. With Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities, the latest documentary from Stanley Nelson (Black Panthers, Freedom Riders) and Marco Williams, the powerful story of the rise, influence, and evolution of HBCUs comes to life.

A haven for Black intellectuals, artists and revolutionaries-and path of promise toward the American dream-Black colleges and universities have educated the architects of freedom movements and cultivated leaders in every field. They have been unapologetically Black for 150 years. For the first time ever, their story is told.

Trailer


Slightly longer trailer


Full video

Tell Them We Are Rising | History & Impact of Historically Black Colleges & Universities | Independent Lens | PBS

Film Tell Them We Are Rising explores pivotal role historically black colleges & universities (HBCUs) have played over 150 years in American history

www.pbs.org

Amazon product ASIN B077ZH9D6T

Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities (2017) ⭐ 6.9 | Documentary, History

1h 25m | Not Rated

www.imdb.com

 

[Scandalust313]

I've seen just about all of these docs (save a couple) and have a few on DVD. Dope thread!


The Scottsboro Boys

The Scottsboro Boys

The case of the Scottsboro Boys lasted more than 80 years and helped spur the Civil Rights Movement.

nmaahc.si.edu

The Jena 6

Background: Jena 6 | American Civil Liberties Union

www.aclu.org

 

[Scandalust313]

One of the best documentaries I've ever seen

13th

13TH | Netflix Official Site

In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.

www.netflix.com

 

[LurkerSix]

This is an old Documentary on Black WallStreet. Whats good about this one, and what makes this different than most others, is they have interviewers with survivors. They're old enough to talk about life before and after the massacre, because most of them were adults when it happened.
Must watch.

Goin' Back To T-Town

Goin’ Back to T-Town

tells the story of Greenwood, an extraordinary Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that prospered during the 1920s and 30s despite rampant and hostile segregation. Torn apart in 1921 by one of the worst racially-motivated massacres in the nation’s history, the neighborhood rose from the ashes, and by 1936 boasted the largest concentration of Black-owned businesses in the U.S., known as “Black Wall Street.” Ironically, it could not survive the progressive policies of integration and urban renewal of the 1960s. Told through the memories of those who lived through the events, the film is a bittersweet celebration of small-town life and the resilience of a community’s spirit.

Trailer


Extended trailers and clips
(in this one they said integration helped kill Greenwood, because when they were designing the highways they had them go right through the main streets of black communities. Damn)





Full video

Goin' Back To T-Town | American Experience | PBS

Revisit a thriving Black community in Tulsa, which rebuilt after a 1921 racially-motivated massacre.

www.pbs.org

Goin' Back to T-Town | American Experience

Goin’ Back to T-Town tells the story of Greenwood, an extraordinary Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that prospered during the 1920s and 30s despite rampant and hostile segregation. Torn apart in 1921 by one of the worst racially-motivated massacres in the nation’s history, the neighborhood...

www.thirteen.org

 

[LurkerSix]

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song Pt. 1

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the roots of African American religion beginning with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the extraordinary ways enslaved Africans preserved and adapted their faith practices from the brutality of slavery to emancipation.

Trailers








Full episode

The Black Church | Episode 1 | PBS

Host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the roots of African American religion.

www.pbs.org

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song Pt. 2

Discover how the Black church expanded its reach to address social inequality and minister to those in need, from the Jim Crow South to the heroic phase of the civil rights movement and the Black church’s role in the present

Full episode

The Black Church | Episode 2 | PBS

Discover how the Black church expanded to address social inequality.

www.pbs.org

Theres also the book version
Amazon product ASIN 1984880330

For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, segregated West Virginia town, the church was his family and his community's true center of gravity. Within those walls, voices were lifted up in song to call forth the best in each other, and to comfort each other when times were at their worst. In this book, his tender and magisterial reckoning with the meaning of the Black church in American history, Gates takes us from his own experience onto a journey across more than 400 years and spanning the entire country. At road's end, we emerge with a new understanding of the centrality of the Black church to the American story - as a cultural and political force, as the center of resistance to slavery and White supremacy, as an unparalleled incubator of talent, and as a crucible for working through the community's most important issues, down to today.

In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black church has always been more than a sanctuary; it's been a place to nourish the deepest human needs and dreams of the African-American community. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: From the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meeting houses were subject to surveillance, and often destruction. So it continued, long after slavery's formal eradication; church burnings and church bombings by the Ku Klux Klan and others have always been a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the struggle for equality for the African-American community. The past often isn't even past - Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in Charleston's Emanuel AME Church 193 years after the church was first burned down by whites following a thwarted slave rebellion.

But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the vital center of the civil rights movement, and produced many of its leaders, from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., on, but at the same time there have always been churches and sects that eschewed a more activist stance, even eschewed worldly political engagement altogether. That tension can be felt all the way to the Black Lives Matter movement and the work of today. Still and all, as a source of strength and a force for change, the Black church is at the center of the action at every stage of the American story, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

Ebook

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - Books on Google Play

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song - Ebook written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This...

play.google.com

Audio versions

The Black Church

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. From the New York Times best-selling author of Stony the Road and one of our most important voices on the African-American experience, a powerful new history of the Black church in America as the Black community's abiding rock and its fortress. The...

www.audible.com

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - Audiobooks on Google Play

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song audiobook written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. Narrated by Dominic Hoffman. Get instant access to all your favorite books. No monthly commitment. Listen online or offline with Android, iOS, web, Chromecast, and Google Assistant. Try Google Play...

play.google.com

 

[LurkerSix]

American Experience | Voice of Freedom

On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stepped up to a microphone in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Inscribed on the walls of the monument behind her were the words “all men are created equal.” Barred from performing in Constitution Hall because of her race, Anderson would sing for the American people in the open air. Hailed as a voice that “comes around once in a hundred years” by maestros in Europe and widely celebrated by both white and black audiences at home, her fame hadn’t been enough to spare her from the indignities and outright violence of racism and segregation. Voice of Freedom interweaves Anderson’s rich life story with this landmark moment in history, exploring fundamental questions about talent, race, fame, democracy, and the American soul.

Trailer


Extended Trailers




Full video

American Experience | Voice of Freedom | Season 33 | Episode 2 | PBS

The life of singer Marian Anderson and her triumphant 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial

www.pbs.org

 

[Scandalust313]

THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION

About the Film
In the turbulent 1960s, change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored — cities were burning, Vietnam was exploding, and disputes raged over equality and civil rights. A new revolutionary culture was emerging and it sought to drastically transform the system. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is the first feature-length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people, and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails.

Master documentarian Stanley Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the diverse group of voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it.



This is the best Black Panthers documentary, IMO. One of my favorite docs ever.

 

[Rainbowdildobuttmonkey]

We're black Americans that's the terminology change the title of the thread.

 

[LurkerSix]

I had other updates, but i lost them when my browser history got deleted. I'll eventually reup on them, but here's one in the mean time.

The Blinding of Isaac Woodard | American Experience | PBS

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.

www.pbs.org

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.

trailer

extended trailer



full film

The Blinding of Isaac Woodard | American Experience | PBS

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.

www.pbs.org

American Experience | Chapter 1 | The Blinding of Isaac Woodard | Season 33 | Episode 3 | PBS

Watch a preview of The Blinding of Isaac Woodard.

www.pbs.org

 

[LurkerSix]

Forgotten Genius​

Season 34 Episode 3

"Nova" Forgotten Genius (TV Episode 2007) - IMDb

Forgotten Genius: Directed by Llewellyn M. Smith. With Shawn Agard, Ray Almeida, Ceoria Coates, Carmen Dillon. Dr. Percy Lavon Julian was a trailblazing chemist whose discoveries improved and saved countless lives. The grandson of slaves, Julian grew up at a time when African Americans faced...

www.imdb.com

NOVA | Forgotten Genius | Julian the Trailblazer | PBS

Read about Percy Julian's trailblazing career and learn how he became a role model for aspiring black chemists.

www.pbs.org

Percy Julian was one of the great scientists of the 20th century. In a chemistry career spanning four decades, he made many valuable discoveries, for which he was awarded dozens of patents, 18 honorary degrees, and membership to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences—only the second African-American bestowed such an honor.

Yet Julian's achievements as a trailblazer for black chemists, while less well-known, are no less remarkable. Growing up when racial discrimination factored into every aspect of life for blacks in America, from riding a bus to getting a job, Julian persevered to realize his dreams. And when he finally "arrived" as a successful chemist and businessman, he did not lose sight of the challenges that fellow blacks still faced. He became a mentor to scores of young black chemists and, later in life, an inspiration for thousands as a civil-rights leader and speaker.

As the late Vernon Jarrett, one of the nation's leading commentators on race relations, put it, "This man is Exhibit A of determination and never giving up. I think he's a role model not only for blacks but for all races."

Dr. Percy Julian was a man of genius, devotion, and determination. The grandson of enslaved people from Alabama, Dr. Percy Julian met with every possible barrier in a deeply racist and segregated America. As one of the first Black chemists, he fought to make a place for himself in a profession and country divided by bigotry. At the height of his career, Dr. Julian had reached unparalleled levels of scientific and personal achievement, overcoming countless obstacles to become a world-class scientist, a self-made millionaire, and a civil rights pioneer.

trailer



full video

Forgotten Genius

Against all odds, African-American chemist Percy Julian became one of the great scientists of the 20th century.

www.pbs.org