Documentaries about Race in America
To get to each documentary, simply click on the picture beside each description.
Lynching Postcards: ‘Token of a Great Day’
This is a very short documentary (only a bit longer than 15 minutes) about the use of postcards to share the news of a lynching. Between 1800 to 1968, over 4000 Black Americans were lynched in the American south after being denied any access to a trial, let alone a fair trial. This documentary shows how white people treated lynchings like every-day events and would often hold picnics at the lynching, celebrating the event with pictures and postcards that they would share with their out-of-town relatives. In turn, the NAACP used these postcards and pictures of these white supremacy celebrations to spread their anti-lynching message, sending them to news outlets and using them in publications like The Crisis to prove that lynchings were happening. You can watch a quick trailer here: Lynching Postcards: Token of a Great Day Official Trailer, and read more about the history of lynching postcards here: How Black Activists used Lynching Souvenirs to Expose American Violence
Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America
This PBS documentary follows the history of Black Americans’ freedom to travel (think pre and post-slavery) and how the travels of Black Americans was largely controlled for most of history (during slavery, the Civil War, and Jim Crow). The advent of the automobile brought an escape and freedom from strict segregationist rules on busses and trains, but traveling by car was not without significant danger for Black Americans. This 2-hour documentary shows the juxtaposition of the freedom that the automobile allowed and the danger that came with one being able to step far outside of their community. This documentary shows how Black Americans faced these dangers while traveling (i.e. The Green Book and not stopping even on long trips), and how these dangers have evolved today. You can watch a quick trailer for the documentary here: Driving While Black (2020) Official Trailer and read an interview about it here: PBS Documentary, 'Driving While Black,' Examines Long Road Of Racism
True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality
Bryan Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative located in Montgomery, Alabama, a civil rights and criminal defense attorney, and the author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. In this documentary, he explains the relationships between slavery, lynching, policing, and the current state of racial inequality in our justice system. Stevenson’s work centers around creating fairness in a legal system that has a history of racial injustice. You can watch a quick trailer here: True Justice (2019) Official Trailer from HBO, and you can learn more about the Equal Justice Initiative here: Equal Justice Initiative, and you can read more about the Civil Rights monument at EJI here: An Alabama Civil Rights Monument Honors Thousands of Lynching Victims
Hello, Privilege. It’s me, Chelsea.
Chelsea Handler is a famed comedian, and she has a history of using racial jokes to get a laugh, with her most notable being Uganda Be Kidding Me, also a Netflix special. In this documentary, Handler talks to people of all races and backgrounds to learn how being white has given her advantages, and how to be a “better white person to People of Color.” One of the best conversations of the movie is with the musician, Jelly Roll. This might be one that you watch once you’re read a little more about race in America, or maybe it’s one that will help you dive right in—even though Handler has a history of being loud and brash, this documentary is surprisingly sensitive and tries to look at the problem through many different lenses. You can watch a quick trailer here: Hello, Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea (2019) Official Trailer, and you can listen to a podcast where she talks to Sam Sanders, host of It’s Been a Minute, about her experiences: It's Been a Minute, Chelsea Handler on White Privilege, 2020
American Experience: Freedom Riders
Many of us know that the Freedom Riders’ busses were bombed, but I don’t believe many of us know the entire story. This 2 hour documentary shows how the Freedom Rides weren’t just a one-time thing, and that the bus being bombed did not serve as the deterrent that many thought it would. This documentary also walks viewers through the politics surrounding the Freedom Rides, and how many politicians who espoused to be for Civil Rights were actively fighting and planning against the Freedom Riders. This documentary shows how the Freedom Rides continued throughout that summer and contains interviews with many of the actual Freedom Riders, giving the documentary a clear authenticity. You can watch a quick trailer here: Freedom Riders (2012) Official Trailer.
The Talk: Race in America
This documentary helps us learn about race in America by interviewing Black families about how they tell their Black children to have conversations with people in power—in many cases what to do if they are pulled over by police. I have known about “the talk” before this documentary, but I have never actually talked to a Black family about it or heard a Black family discuss it in such honesty. This documentary was released in 2017 and has about a two-hour run time. You can find it here: The Talk: Race in America (2017)