The PRATT in the HAT is a short film about Frances Pratt, her hats, her wit, and her civil rights leadership which began in 1957 and continues till today as the President of the Nyack, NY Branch of the NAACP.
Eyewitness accounts recall when Klansmen attacked a bus filled with Freedom Riders in Anniston, Ala. and set it on fire.
A group of longtime Chicago residents born in the Mississippi Delta returns to Greenville, Mississippi, for a reunion with family and friends. Participants talk about their lives and reasons for migrating north as part of "The Great Migration." Archival footage of Mississippi and Chicago is included.
Weaving together the voices of women entangled in the criminal justice system, along with leading scholars on prison abolition, this film provides a critical analysis of the disfunctionality and violence of the prison system.
The Longoria Affair is about a controversy that arose when the body of a dead soldier from WWII was finally identified in 1949.
A thought-provoking, humanistic portrait of a Chicago nurse who risked her personal freedom and was imprisoned in civil rights demonstrations and protests against the Vietnam War.
In January of 2016, a dozen members of the Memphis transgender community began meeting for a weekly story circle facilitated by Elaine Blanchard. The program, based on the format of her award winning Prison Stories series, was a time for sharing, healing and enlightenment. Thanks to the generosity of The California Institute for the Contemporary Arts, filmmaker Shelby Fuller Elwood documented their journey. All people have a story to tell, and all people long to be heard, respected and valued for who they are, and what they have experienced in life.
Standing Rock, 2016: the largest Native American occupation since Wounded Knee, thousands of activists, environmentalists, and militarized police descend on the Dakota Access Pipeline, in a standoff between Big Oil and a new generation of native warriors. Embedded in the movement, native activist and filmmaker Cody Lucich chronicles the sweeping struggle in stunning clarity, as the forces battle through summer to bitter winter, capturing the spirit and havoc of an uprising. From the initial gathering days on the Standing Rock reservation, the movement grew to thousands of water protectors, living in a protest camp and resisting construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Akicita focuses on the voices of young Native warriors who stepped up to lead the charge, expressing the beats of the movement from every front—confrontations with the police, the vibrant daily customs of the camp, and more. Through the eyes of the young Native protesters, the struggle feels deeply personal.
When Georgia Tech came to Michigan in 1934, the Wolverines were forced to bench their best play, Willis Ward, because he was an African-American. The incident infuriated Ward’s best friend on the team, a future president by the name of Jerry Ford, who threatened to quit the team in response. The friendship that began in the Big House lasted all the way to the White House. This is the story of two schools, two friends, and a game that changed everything.
Through a training trip, in which the filmmakers also participate, the contrasts that exist between the conservatism of machismo and the new masculinity are evident; testimonies, discoveries and liberation in a circle of men.
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.
In Athens, Georgia, a college fraternity traditionally known to fly the confederate flag moves to a historically Black neighborhood and establishes their presence by staging an antebellum-style parade. What starts with a neighborhood struggle over cultural legacies in the South, the opening of a community garden becomes a grounds for understanding, as well as a physical and emotional space for healing, offering a sense of possibility and hope for the future.
This film shines a light on a sorry and oft-forgotten chapter in US history— the forced sterilization of 7,600 people thought to have “undesirable” genetic make-ups. The film follows researchers & journalists who delved into dusty archives to bring North Carolina’s extensive eugenics program into the sunlight. When the journalists succeed in connecting those files to living survivors and the vast network of perpetrators are revealed, a grassroots movement begins, tirelessly insisting the state confront its nefarious past. The documentary— four years in the making, brings into focus the human tragedy that unfolded behind closed doors for decades and gives voice to survivors who believed their poverty would leave their stories untold and their pain unrecognized.
The story of the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans and the loss of civil rights.
Tells of Aborigines' removal from their families to be sent to work as servants for white people and the rise of the first Aboriginal organisations in the 1930's, in particular the Aborigines Progressive Association.
Focuses on 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, as she discusses the lack of human rights for the indigenous people of Guatemala and her commitment to the struggle for a more egalitarian society.
See how New Deal-era Redlining maps delineated risk areas for federally-backed mortgages and home-ownership programs, resulting in a wealth gap that continues to impact communities and Black families today.
The rise, fall, and legacy of gay rights warrior Jeffrey Montgomery, and the struggle for equality in the Midwest.
A short film entitled "A Letter To Claudette Colvin", written and directed by Victoria Wilson bringing awareness to Colvin's involvement in the Montgomery Bus Boycott which ignited due to her refusal on March 2, 1955.