Social Justice January: Films

From the well-publicized events at San Francisco State in 1968 to the image of black students with guns emerging from the takeover of the student union at Cornell University in April 1969, the struggle for a more relevant and meaningful education became a clarion call across the country in the late 1960s. Through the stories of the young men and women who were at the forefront of these efforts, Agents of Change examines the untold story of the racial conditions on college campuses and in the country that led to these protests, revealing how unprepared these institutions were when confronted by demands for black studies programs, safer housing, fairer judicial proceedings, and changes to democratize the institutions. The film's characters were at the crossroads of change and controversy at a pivotal time in America's history. Written by Ginzberg Films.

Based on the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic American freedom fighter, the movie tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.

Offered a plea deal by the FBI, William O'Neal infiltrates the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party to gather intelligence on Chairman Fred Hampton.

About a young Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, as he battles through one of his career defining cases.

creen version of the life of Malcolm X, who through his religious conversion to Islam, found the strength to rise up from a criminal past to become an influential civil rights leader.

Tells the story of four battles in which Native American activists are fighting to preserve their land and culture. Gail Small leads the fight to protect the Cheyenne homeland in Montana from proposed methane gas wells that threaten to pollute the water and make the land unsuitable for farming or ranching. In Alaska, Evon Peter is fighting against efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mitchell and Rita Capitan have founded an organization of Eastern Navajo people in New Mexico, whose drinking water is threatened by proposed uranium mining. In Maine, Barry Dana is battling state government and the paper companies that have left his people unable to fish or swim in or harvest medicinal plants from the river on which they've depended for 10,000 years.

"While the beginnings of the LGBT Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum, the 1970s witnessed horrific custody battles for lesbian mothers. 'Mom's Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers' Custody Movement' revisits the early tumultuous years of the lesbian custody movement through the stories of five lesbian mothers and their four children"--Container. This program also discusses two organizations in the 1970s that provided funds and support for lesbian child custody cases: The Lesbian Rights Project in San Francisco and the Lesbian Mother's National Defense Fund in Seattle, Washington.

83 minutes

Collection of programs examining the events of the 1960s. From the glamorous years of the Kennedy administration at the beginning of the decade to the triumph of the first moonwalk at the end, escorts viewers through the period's world-changing events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis; the civil rights movement; the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; urban riots; the Vietnam War; and the peace movement it fostered. Also covered are the decade's cultural touch points: the Beatles and Bob Dylan, birth control pills and the sexual revolution, miniskirts, hippies, communes, the "Summer of Love," LSD, and Woodstock.

A powerful and thought-provoking true story follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley. One of his first and most incendiary cases is that of Walter McMillian.

A look at social change throughout history, as seen through the music, poetry, speeches, and manifestos of rebels, dissenters, and visionaries from our past - and present - including Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Bob Dylan, Langston Hughes, Chief Joseph, Muhammad Ali, along with unknown veterans, union workers, abolitionists, and many others never featured in high school textbooks. Celebrates the extraordinary possibilities for creating social change that ordinary people have realized throughout the course of our nation's rich but often ignored history of dissent and protest.

We've been told again and again that sports and politics don't mix. In this documentary, Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation magazine, takes viewers on a tour of the good, the bad, and the ugly of American sports culture -- showing how sports have helped both to stabilize and to disrupt the political status quo throughout history. Explores how American sports, at their worst, have reinforced repressive political ideas and institutions by glamorizing things like militarism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, as well as looking at a history of rebel athletes who dared to fight for social justice beyond the field of play.

Aaron Swartz was a programming prodigy who helped shape the digital landscape of today. He helped develop the internet protocol RSS and was a co-founder of Reddit. Chronicling his pioneering efforts crusading for open access and free speech and the resulting legal nightmare and tragedy that ensued, the documentary is a dynamic and moving portrait of a brilliant tech millionaire who renounced the values of Silicon Valley startup culture and used technology to tirelessly fight for social justice.

How to start a revolution profiles Gene Sharp through interviews with his ally, Retired U.S. Army Colonel Robert Helvey, and key leaders of nonviolent revolutions around the world--all of whom testify to the power of Gene's work in practice. This film shows how one man's thinking has contributed to the liberation of millions of oppressed people living under some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world, and how his work in direct action and civil disobedience continues to be used today to topple dictators using the sheer force of nonviolent people power.

Award winning documentary that follows three seriously ill refugees through the health care system of one Minnesota clinic. The film sheds light on the life and death challenges of the patients, the influence of their immigrant experiences on their health and outlook, their relationships with their families and health care providers, and their spirit and courage.

This two-part series tells one of the 20th century's most important and least-known stories--how nonviolent power overcame oppression and authoritarian rule. In South Africa in 1907, Mohandas Gandhi led Indian immigrants in a nonviolent fight for rights denied them by white rulers. The power that Gandhi pioneered has been used by underdogs on every continent and in every decade of the 20th century to fight for their rights and freedom.

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this Peabody Award-winning documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the highest office in the land. Shunned by the political establishment and the media, this longtime champion of marginalized Americans asked for support from people of color, women, gays, and young people newly empowered to vote at the age of 18. Chisholm's bid for an equal place on the presidential dais generated strong, even racist opposition. Yet her challenge to the status quo and her message about exercising the right to vote struck many as progressive and positive. Official Selection at the Sundance International Film Festival and the SXSW Film Festival.

In this award-winning PBS documentary, archival footage and photographs are skillfully juxtaposed with interviews with editors, photographers and reporters from African-American newspapers, who toiled on the front lines to give voice to a culture disenfranchised by white media. Stanley Nelson's film sheds light on the courageous progenitors of the black press in America and examines the historic contributions and long-lasting legacy these papers have had on our society.

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.

In this award-winning documentary, Cecilia Fire Thunder- the first female President of the Oglala Sioux tribe, defies a proposed South Dakota law criminalizing all abortion by threatening to build a women's clinic on the sovereign territory of the reservation. Her threats ignite a political firestorm that sets off a chain reaction in the lives of three young Lakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation, forcing each of them to make choices that define who they are and the kind of adults they are becoming.

This film is about an inspiring young man whose story is exceptional, although not unique. When Moises Serrano was just a baby, his parents risked everything to flee Mexico in search of the American dream. Forbidden to live and love as an undocumented gay man in the country he calls home, Serrano saw only one option: to fight for justice. Serrano is like the thousands of other young people growing up in the United States with steadfast dreams but all the cards stacked against them. The film chronicles Serrano's work as an activist traveling across his home state of North Carolina as a voice for his community, all while trying to forge a path for his own future. In the fall of 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump is preaching damaging rhetoric towards immigrants and in North Carolina progress is unraveling as discriminatory laws continue to oppress the LGBTQ community. FORBIDDEN humanizes the issues and demonstrates how a loving family has the power to defeat prejudice. This is a story about love conquering hate.

Ballot Measure 9 is the starting point for dialogue about the democratic process, offering a valuable window to discussions about the health of the society in which we live. The Sundance-winning feature is a chilling chronicle of an historic gay-rights battle in Oregon. As the anti-gay violence escalates, the film evolves into an expose of hate politics that crosses lines of race, religion, and sexual identity. As the polarizing issue of gay marriage re-invigorates these cultural wars of the last decade today, this classic documentary resonates as strongly as ever. Director Heather Lyn MacDonald ducks behind the headlines to bare the passions and strategies that drove both sides. Culled from hundreds of hours of material shot over the nine months leading to the election, Ballot Measure 9 tells a story of driving urgency. The chasms that divide the country today keep Ballot Measure 9 relevant to a new generation of citizens.

SummaryIn 1982, at the height of anti-Japanese sentiments arising from massive layoffs in the auto industry, a Chinese-American named Vincent Chin was murdered in Detroit by two white autoworkers. Chin's killers, however, got off with a $3,000 fine and 3 years probation, but no jail time. Outraged by this injustice, Asian Americans around the country united for the first time across ethnic and socioeconomic lines to form a pan-Asian identity and civil rights movement. Among its significant outcomes, the movement led to the historic broadening of federal civil rights protection to include all people in America regardless of immigrant status or ethnicity. Vincent Who? explores this important legacy through interviews with the key players at the time as well as a whole new generation of activists whose lives were impacted by Vincent Chin.

"A new documentary about how a social justice organization based in Oakland, California--Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA)--focused on building the long-term collective leadership of limited-English speaking immigrants, and empowered women and youth to become powerful agents of social change"--Kanopy website.

When a courageous woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal sterilizations in California's women's prisons, they wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes-from inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations-primarily targeting women of color. This drama captured over 7-years features extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, demanding attention to a shameful and ongoing legacy of eugenics and reproductive injustice in the U. S.

How could America claim to be the world's greatest democracy, but deny the right to vote to women? With an introduction by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, One Woman, One Vote documents the events that culminated in the passing of the 19th Amendment.

This film goes beyond the news headlines to spotlight the impact of the devastating water contamination crisis on the people of Flint, Michigan. The film highlights the stories of residents who were personally injured, along with the work of local organizations and individuals that rallied to support them.

It began as a housing marvel. Built in 1956, Pruitt-Igoe was heralded as the model public housing project of the future, "the poor man's penthouse." Two decades later, it ended in rubble - its razing an iconic event that the architectural theorist Charles Jencks famously called "the death of modernism." The footage and images of its implosion have helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoe's creation. To re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To implode the myth.

Anne Braden: Southern Patriot is a first person documentary about the extraordinary life of this American civil rights leader. Braden was hailed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his 1963 letter from Birmingham Jail as a white southerner whose rejection of her segregationist upbringing was "eloquent and prophetic." Ostracized as a "red" in the 1950s, she fought for an inclusive movement community and mentored three generations of social justice advocates. Braden's story explores not only the dangers of racism and political repression but also the power of a woman's life spent in commitment to social justice.

Few judges provoke the ire of conservatives more than Thelton Henderson, senior judge of the Federal District Court of Northern California. This program profiles Thelton Henderson's life and career, exploring what his decisions on affirmative action, environmental protection, and prison reform--and the furors that surrounded these decisions--mean for American society. Henderson's rulings, often protecting the constitutional rights of the marginalized, demand close scrutiny of the complex interplay between the law, political power, and social justice. (60 minutes) A streaming videorecording.

The story of segregation and the brilliant legal campaign against it which helped to launch the Civil Rights movement. Also a moving and long-overdue tribute to a daring but little known Black lawyer, Charles Hamilton Houston - "the man who killed Jim Crow". Charles Houston, Dean of Howard University Law School, realized that an attack on the legal basis of segregated education would undermine Jim Crow. In a taut constitutional detective story, the video untangles the cases that led to the landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Finally, the video revisits the "New South" of integrated schools and black elected officials. Though much has changed, America still has far to go along the road to equality and social justice