Library News
Civil Rights era video, streaming for all the world to see @Booth
Posted on September 29th, 2016
This collection of African American Civil Rights Movement era film and television is available to stream through Booth’s subscription to Alexander Street Press. The selected videos build on the bibliography compiled by Marlene Slough in the program booklet for the For All the World to See exhibit currently at Booth. The videos are subtitled and accompanied by text transcripts. (Please note that viewing access is restricted to Eastern Illinois University patrons.)
All Power to the People!
Documentary on the historical context for the establishment of the civil rights movement and the formation of the Black Panther Party. (1996, 1 hr. 57 min.)
A Child Shall Lead Them
Tells the story of public school desegregation in Nashville, Tennessee, beginning with first graders in September 1957. (2008, 23 min.)
The Color of Justice
Explores judicial decisions that have shaped America’s racial attitudes—the Dred Scott case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, the 1970 court order to integrate the schools of Lamar, South Carolina—and reviews the efforts of modern political and judicial leaders to help break the color line in the nation’s schools, voting booths, courtrooms, and public accommodations. (1970, 24 min.)
February One
Documentary on the sit-in staged by four Black college students at the lunch counter of the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth five and dime store. (2003, 57 min.)
Freedom Summer
Spotlights the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi on June 21, 1964. From the History Channel television miniseries 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. (2006, 38 min.)
The Freedom Train
Documents the National Negro Labor Council, formed in 1951 to advance Blacks in the workplace and eliminate racism inside the unions. (1996, 30 min.)
Freedom’s Call
Dorothy Gilliam and Ernest Withers, two African-American journalists who covered the events of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, return to the deep South where it all took place. Their journey to Memphis, Little Rock, Oxford, Jackson and the Mississippi Delta brings back memories of those turbulent times. (2007, 47 min.)
Home of the Brave
Documentary on the civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered in 1965 as she campaigned for Black suffrage in Selma, Alabama. (2003, 1 hr. 14 min.)
July ’64
Using archival footage and interviews with those who were present, this film explores the genesis and outcome of a three-night riot that erupted in two predominantly Black neighborhoods in downtown Rochester, New York—the culmination of decades of poverty, joblessness and racial discrimination. (2004, 54 min.)
Never Turn Back
This tribute to Fannie Lou Hamer, a nonviolent motivator in the civil rights movement, includes an interview with her, comments from individuals who knew her or her work, and scenes of her galvanizing civil rights workers. (1983, 59 min.)
Off the Pig / Mayday / Repression
A trio of early documentaries about the Black Panther Party, by the Newsreel film collective. From the What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library collection. (1968, 14 min.; 1969, 13 min.; 1969, 13 min.)
Oh, Freedom!
Traces the Black civil rights movement from 1955 when a Black woman refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, to the cry for Black power nearly a decade later. Explores the movement and its impact through the words of the people involved, and through examinations of the concept of Black Power. (1970, 27 min.)
Revolution ’67
Focuses on the explosive urban rebellion in Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967, to reveal the long-standing racial, economic, and political forces which generated inner city poverty and perpetuate it today. (2007, 1 hr. 14 min.)
The Road to Brown
This documentary tells the story of the battle to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and of the man who led the charge, lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston. Moving from slavery to civil rights, the program provides a concise history of how African Americans finally won full legal equality. (1990, 57 min.)
Rosa Parks: The Path to Freedom
Biography of the dynamic but quiet woman whose demand for her civil rights led to the social changes of the 1960s. This documentary contains an overview of the events that took place in Montgomery, Alabama: Mrs. Parks’ arrest, the bus boycott, and the segregation laws that were finally overturned. (1996, 25 min.)
The Strange Demise of Jim Crow
Not all civil rights victories of the 1960s played out in front of television cameras. This documentary focuses on Houston, Texas, as an example of how many Southern cities were desegregated in a quieter fashion, with behind-the-scenes negotiations, secret deals, and controversial news blackouts. (1997, 57 min.)
Voices of Civil Rights
Personal narratives of everyday people who lived through this transformative era, from bus boycotts in Birmingham to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From the History Channel “Save Our History” series. (2005, 45 min.)
