History on Film: Black Resistance

1 PM / I Am Not Your Negro (2016, dir. Raoul Peck, 93 mins., PG-13)  
 

Master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, Remember This House. 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. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for. 

3 PM / If Beale Street Could Talk (2018, dir. Berry Jenkins, 119 mins., R)  

Adapted from James Baldwin’s stunning novel by the same name, in early 1970’s Harlem, Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, is in love with a young sculptor, Fonny, the father of her unborn child. When Fonny is falsely accused of rape and imprisoned, Tish and their families race to clear his name before the baby is born. A story about love persisting in the face of racial oppression and injustice. 

3 PM / Do the Right Thing (1989, dir. Spike Lee, 120 mins., R)  

Set on one block of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy Do or Die neighborhood, at the height of summer, this 1989 masterpiece by Spike Lee confirmed him as a writer and filmmaker of peerless vision and passionate social engagement. Over the course of a single day, the easygoing interactions of a cast of unforgettable characters—Da Mayor, Mother Sister, Mister Señor Love Daddy, Tina, Sweet Dick Willie, Buggin Out, Radio Raheem, Sal, Pino, Vito, and Lee’s Mookie among them—give way to heated confrontations as tensions rise along racial fault lines, ultimately exploding into violence. Punctuated by the anthemic refrain of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” Do the Right Thing is a landmark in American cinema, as politically and emotionally charged and as relevant now as when it first hit the big screen. 

1 PM / John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020, dir. Dawn Porter, 96 mins., PG)  

An intimate account of legendary U.S. Representative John Lewis’ life, legacy, and more than 60 years of extraordinary activism—from the bold teenager on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement to the legislative powerhouse he was throughout his career. After Lewis petitioned Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to help integrate a segregated school in his hometown of Troy, Alabama, King sent “the boy from Troy” a round-trip bus ticket to meet with him. From that meeting onward, Lewis became one of King’s closest allies. He organized Freedom Rides that left him bloodied or jailed and stood at the front lines in the historic marches on Washington and Selma. He never lost the spirit of the “boy from Troy” and called on his fellow Americans to get into “good trouble” until his passing on July 17, 2020. 

3 PM / Selma (2014, dir. Ava DuVernay, 128 mins., PG-13) 

Selma is the story of a movement. Revered leader and visionary, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo) leads his brothers and sisters in the tumultuous three-month march in 1965 to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement that altered the history of a nation.