Just Mercy Free to watch for the month of June, this 2019 film about Bryan Stevenson and the work of the Equal Justice Initiative portrays racism in our society and the justice system.
When They See Us, Four-part Netflix series by Ava DuVernay about the wrongful incarceration and ultimate exoneration of the “Central Park Five.” (four 1+ hour episodes)
13th, Netflix documentary by Ava DuVernay about the connection between US Slavery and the present day mass incarceration system. (1 hour 40 minutes)
The Hate U Give, a film based on the YA novel by Angie Thomas offering an intimate portrait of race in America (2 hours 13 minutes)
Fruitvale Station, a film with Michael B. Jordan about the killing of Oscar Grant (1 hour 25 minutes)
I Am Not Your Negro Narrated by the words of James Baldwin with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro connects the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Although Baldwin died nearly 30 years before the film's release, his observations about racial conflict are as incisive today as they were when he made them. (1 hour 33 minutes)
Whose Streets? The 2014 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo. was one of the deaths that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Frustrated by media coverage of unrest in Ferguson, co-directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis documented how locals felt about police in riot gear filling their neighborhoods with tear gas. As one resident says, "They don't tell you the fact that the police showed up to a peaceful candlelight vigil...and boxed them in, and forced them onto a QuikTrip lot." (1 hour 42 minutes)
LA 92 LA 92 is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage — no talking heads needed. It's chilling to watch the unrest of nearly 30 years ago, as young people still take to the streets and shout, "No justice, no peace." (1 hour 54 minutes)
Teach Us All Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are still segregated. Teach Us All explains why that is — school choice, residential segregation, biased admissions processes — and talks to advocates working for change. Interspersing interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, the documentary asks how far we've really come. (1 hour 20 minutes)
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise In this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens. Released days after the 2016 election, some themes of the documentary took on a deeper meaning amid Donald Trump's win. "Think of the civil rights movement to the present as a second Reconstruction — a 50-year Reconstruction — that ended last night," Gates said in an interview with Salon. (4 episodes, 1 hour each)
Slavery by Another name, 90 minutes PBS documentary challenges the idea that slavery ended with the emancipation proclamation. (90 minutes)
Unnatural Causes, Seven part documentary by California Newsreel that explores the impact of racism on health and US healthcare. (4 hours total, episodes have variable lengths)
Birth of a White Nation, Keynote speech by legal scholar Jacqueline Battalora, offers a blow-by-blow description of the moment the idea of, and word for, "white" people entered U.S. legal code. (36 minutes)
In The White Man's Image PBS documentary about the Native American boarding school movement designed to “kill the Indian and save the man.” (56 minutes)
Race: The Power of an Illusion, Three-part, three-hour film by California Newsreel exploring the biology of skin color, the concept of assimilation, and the history of institutional racism. (three 1 hour episodes)
Jim Crow of the North - Full-Length Documentary Roots of racial disparities are seen through a new lens in this film that explores the origins of housing segregation in the Minneapolis area. But the story also illustrates how African-American families and leaders resisted this insidious practice, and how Black people built community — within and despite — the red lines that these restrictive covenants created. (58 minutes)
The Kalief Browder Story: This documentary recounts the story of Kalief Browder, a Bronx high school student who was imprisoned for three years, two of them in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, without being convicted of a crime. He was accused at 16 of stealing a backpack, and his family was unable to afford his bail, set at $3,000. (Netflix) (6 episodes, 45 minutes each)