It’s February, and that means Black History Month programming is in full swing. Many libraries and events focus on the distant past, and while such remembrance and education is important, Black History often gets bogged down in the Civil Rights era and the Civil War. Break out of these periods or fill gaps in your existing programming with some more recent black history.
Silence Sam (2019)
For decades, students and community members protested the presence of a statue praising the confederacy dominating a prominent space on the University of North Carolina’s campus. Protests and vandalism only ramped up as the years went by, until a final push for the statue’s removal in 2018 was successful in banishing the hateful idol. Learn about Silent Sam’s last days and the student-centered effort that led to his removal in the fantastic short documentary, Silence Sam.
Click here to watch Silence Sam on YouTube.
Stranger Fruit (2017)
The police killing of Michael Brown in 2014 poured fuel onto the fire of the modern civil rights movement. Controversy still follows the incident, and peculiarities–like the nearly-month-long grand jury–make some of these controversies incredibly compelling. Stranger Fruit followed the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri for two years, giving viewers insight into the protests, political movements, and the Brown family’s thoughts and experiences. If you’re considering programming discussing recent black history, it would be difficult to avoid the topic of Michael Brown’s killing, and it would be more difficult to find a better documentary on the topic.
Click here to watch Stranger Fruit on Prime Video.
Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story (2018)
In 2012, the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin brought into question the necessity and validity of “stand your ground” self-defense laws. Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story breaks down the incident and the surrounding politics and racial injustice of “stand your ground” laws. This killing sparked a movement with continuing activism and policy repercussions today. Any modern black history programming should include discussion of this event. This documentary series does a fantastic job of bringing black history and the fight for civil rights beyond Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech and into the more recent past.
Click here to watch Rest in Power on Prime Video.
Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement (2016)
Much like the documentary series above, Stay Woke looks at the killing of Trayvon Martin, but focuses on the #BlackLivesMatter movement that erupted afterward. Especially in today’s political climate, these movements and ideas are twisted by ignorance and rhetoric. Conservative political commentators through thoughtless repetition have created a fictionalized counter-narrative for what the Black Lives Matter movement represented and the political demands its activist have made through the years. Similarly, ‘woke’ has changed from a statement of solidarity to a mocking jab because of overuse and redefinition by the same bad-faith political actors. Remind your patrons where these terms entered the zeitgeist and allow the activists, political leaders, and cultural icons who pioneered them to explain their meanings and political beliefs themselves.
Click here to watch Stay Work on Prime Video.
Frontline | Whose Vote Counts (2020)
The 2020 election was one of the most monumental and challenging of the past half-century. With a global pandemic raging and political unrest still churning from the past decade, some communities were rife with voter disenfranchisement. Author Jelani Cobb investigates how pandemic policies, misinformation, and corruption made some communities votes count less than others. He also tackles the overblown claims of mail-in voter fraud, and addresses political narratives keeping some from the polls during an historic election. Don’t forget to add Frontline | Whose Vote Counts to your recent black history programming.
Click here to watch Whose Vote Counts on PBS.
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