February is Black History Month. This month, we at the UW Tacoma Library are highlighting films that acknowledge, honor, and celebrate the lasting legacies of Black creators and activists. We not only want to shed light on history, but also look toward the future so we will be exploring different themes in Black and African American film throughout the month. We acknowledge that we should not only look at these resources now, but throughout our personal, educational and professional lives. We hope that these lists may serve as inspiration or a place to start.
This week we are bringing you film recommendations drawn from the curriculum for Dr. Michael Honey’s THIST 441: Black Freedom Movement in Perspective and THIST 416: Life and Thought: Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis courses, both of which will be offered this Spring Quarter.
All Power to the People!
Opening with a montage of four hundred years of race injustice in America, this powerful documentary provides the historical context for the establishment of the 60s civil rights movement. Rare clips of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and other activists transport one back to those tumultuous times.
Available for streaming via the UW Libraries.
Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin
A documentary examining the life of Bayard Rustin, one of the first “freedom riders,” an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. However, Rustin was forced to play a background role in landmark civil rights events because he was homosexual. This feature-length portrait unfolds both chronologically and thematically, using interviews with others, and Rustin’s own voice, taken from his writings, papers, correspondence, and recorded interviews.
Available for streaming via the UW Libraries.
I Am Not Your Negro
Using James Baldwin’s unfinished final manuscript, Remember This House, this documentary follows the lives and successive assassinations of three of the author’s friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., delving into the legacy of these iconic figures and narrating historic events using Baldwin’s original words and a flood of rich archival material. An up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, this film is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.
Available for streaming via the UW Libraries.
Selma
Ava DuVernay’s 2014 historical drama portrays Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s struggle to secure voting rights for all people. A dangerous and terrifying campaign that culminated with an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1964.
Available for streaming via the UW Libraries.