HKDPL Racial and Gender Equity Resources: Media: Movies, Music and Podcasts

The rate at which black Americans are killed by police is more than twice as high as the rate for white Americans. This is a non-comprehensive list of deaths at the hands of police in the U.S. since Eric Garner's death in July 2014.
LA Johnson/NPR

Events of the past few years have turned a challenging spotlight on White people, and Whiteness, in the United States. This season focuses on a series exploring what it means to be White.

In the late 1970s, Dr. Will Ross was told to stay away when applying for medical school in St. Louis. He was told the city was too racist and that he’d be better off on the east coast. But Dr. Ross decided to dig in, and he’s spent a career trying to alleviate massive racial disparities in health outcomes. He’s convinced that the only way to clear a path toward meaningful policy changes is by unifying fractured governmental structures in St. Louis City and County. And a couple of years ago, that belief landed him at a crossroads. He would join powerful people who wanted to create a new way to govern a divided region. But things didn’t exactly go as planned. We tell the story of how Dr. Ross’ recommendations and his criticisms were received, because it says a lot about how race and power continue to work in one of the nation’s most segregated cities.

I'm talking with professor Ibram Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist and the Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. We talk about racial disparities, policy, and equality, but we really focus on How to Be an Antiracist, which is a groundbreaking approach to understanding uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves.

An audio series on how slavery has transformed America, connecting past and present through the oldest form of storytelling.

Today Shaun wants to teach you what may be his most important lesson on how we can actually abolish the systems and structures of mass incarceration and police brutality. We often fail in these attempts, because we don't actually know what we're tearing down. It's not one system. And we are choosing to believe that's good news. It's 30,000 microsystems. Let us explain.

In many parts of the U.S., public school districts are just minutes apart, but have vastly different racial demographics — and receive vastly different funding. That's in part due to Milliken v. Bradley, a 1974 Supreme Court case that limited a powerful tool for school integration.

Still Processing is hosted by Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris, two culture writers for The New York Times. They discuss everything from books to art to movies, while explaining how that often intersects with race in America.

A podcast dedicated to frank, honest, and respectful discussions about racism in the U.S.

From the author behind the bestselling Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, comes a podcast that takes the conversation a step further.

Featuring key voices from the last few decades of anti-racist activism, About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge looks at the recent history that lead to the politics of today.

Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressure from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what's right.

When Tony Lip, a bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley, a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on a book to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans. Confronted with racism, danger, as well as unexpected humanity and humor, they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the journey of a lifetime.

As the United States raced against Russia to put a man in space, NASA found untapped talent in a group of African-American female mathematicians that served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson crossed all gender, race, and professional lines while their brilliance and desire to dream big, beyond anything ever accomplished before by the human race, firmly cemented them in U.S. history as true American heroes.

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 timeless love story set in early 1970s Harlem involving newly engaged nineteen-year- old Tish and her fiance Fonny who have a beautiful future ahead. But their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Now the pair and their families must fight for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream.

Master documentary filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original words and a flood of rich archival material. A journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.
Reading Level: MPAA rating: PG-13; for disturbing violent images, thematic material, language and brief nudity.

The true story of Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident who wakes up on the morning of December 31, 2008 and feels something in the air. Not sure what it is, he takes it as a sign to get a head start on his resolutions: Being a better son to his mother, being a better partner to his girlfriend, and being a better father to T, their beautiful four-year-old daughter. He starts out well, but as the day goes on, he realizes that change is not going to come easy.

Ron Stallworth, an African-American police officer from Colorado, successfully managed to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan and became the head of the local chapter.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historical 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.
Reading Level: Rating: PG-13; for disturbing thematic material including violence, a suggestive moment, and brief strong language.

A young black man meets his white girlfriend's parents at their estate, only to find out that the situation is much more sinister than it appears.

"The hottest day of the year explodes onscreen in this vibrant look at a day in the life of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. A portrait of urban racial tensions sparked controversy while earning popular and critical praise,"--Container.

The story of Celie, a poor black woman from the south, whose friendship with two women helps her overcome the brutality of her father and husband.

A sharp and funny comedy about a group of African-American students as they navigate campus life and racial boundaries at a predominately white college. A sly, provocative satire about being a black face in a white place.

Tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was abducted in Washington, D.C., and forced to spend the next twelve years of his life in captivity as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation.

Story of Malcolm X, as he rises up from poverty, encounters the law, achieves spiritual enlightenment, and reaches out to others in the fight for human and civil rights.

Story of the African-American US Cavalry Troop H, which protected the Western territories in post Civil War times and battled racial tensions within the ranks.

More African Americans are under 'correctional' (prison) control today than were enslaved in 1850. Why? The movie explores mass incarceration across the U.S. and the intersection of race, poverty, and the criminal justice and penal systems. It centers around Michelle Alexander's theory in her groundbreaking book, 'The New Jim Crow:' through the rise of the drug war and tough on crime policies, because discretion within the system allows for targeting people of color at disproportionately high rates, mass incarceration is the new caste system in America. The movie dissects the War on Drugs and 'tough on crime' movement, illustrates how the emerging Occupy movement offers hope for change, and explores possible reforms and solutions to ending mass incarceration and this new racial caste system.

Since August, 2017, Frontline and ProPublica have been investigating the resurgence of violent white supremacists in America. In Documenting Hate: Charlottesville, correspondent A.C. Thompson methodically tracks down some of those at the center of the infamous and deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia--revealing that one participant in the violence was an active-duty Marine, and another worked for a major defense contractor and held a U.S. government security clearance. The investigation also shows just how ill-prepared law enforcement was to handle an influx of white supremacists from across the country, some of whom had been part of a series of earlier violent controntations in California and descended on Charlottesville specifically to fight. This joint investigation documents the group's terrorist objectives, examines how civilian and military authorities have responded, and shows how the group gained strength after the 2017 Charlottesville rally.

Follow the courageous journey of John Lewis, a civil rights hero, congressional leader, and human rights champion whose unwavering fight for justice spans the past 50 years. The son of sharecroppers, Lewis grew up in the segregated South and rose from Alabama's Black Belt to the corridors of power on Capitol Hill. His humble origins have forever linked him to those whose voices often go unheard.

From award-winning director/producer Peter Kunhardt, King in the Wilderness follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the volatile last three years of his life, from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in April 1968. Drawing on revelatory stories from his inner circle of friends, the film provides a clear window into the civil rights leader's character, showing him to be a man with an unshakeable commitment to peaceful protest in the face of an increasingly unstable country. Illuminating and poignant, the documentary - which is tied to the 50th anniversary of King's death - reveals a conflicted leader whose successes were punctuated in his final years by an onslaught of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum, whether the Black Power movement, who saw his nonviolence as weakness, or President Lyndon B. Johnson, who viewed his anti-Vietnam War speeches as irresponsible. With compassion and clarity, King in the Wilderness unearths a stirring new perspective into Dr. King's character, his radical doctrine of nonviolence, and his internal philosophical struggles prior to his death, inviting a sense of penetrating intimacy and insight into one of the most profound thinkers of our time.

Marion Stokes was secretly recording American television 24 hours a day for thirty years. It started in 1979 with the Iranian Hostage Crisis at the dawn of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. It ended on December 14, 2012, while the Sandy Hook massacre played on television as Marion passed away. In between, Marion recorded on 70,000 VHS tapes, capturing revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials that told us who we were, and show how television shaped the world of today.