Documentaries

Chicago suffered the worst heat disaster in U.S history in 1995 when 739 residents, mostly elderly and black, died over one week. This documentary links the heat wave's devastation to the underlying manmade disaster of structural racism, and delves deep into one of our nation's biggest growth industries: disaster preparedness.

Part of the Black Film Festival hosted by Justified Anger

At just over 30 minutes, Jacqueline Battalora, a white former police officer now Professor of Sociology, breaks down how "white people did not exist before 1681" via a lecture with slides on the beginnings of America and its associated socioeconomic ladder and social life at the time.

Recommended by Nehemiah: Center for Urban Leadership Development

90 minute comprehensive documentary on life on the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge reservation. From the director of Rez-Bomb and Neither Wolf Nor Dog

This film was created to help organizations bridge the gap between good intentions and meaningful change. First person stories from white men and women on overcoming issues of unconscious bias and entitlement show what is required of individuals to move through the stages of denial, defensiveness, guilt, fear, and shame into making a solid commitment to ending racial injustice.  Features stories from: Tim Wise, Joe Fahey, Peggy V. McIntosh, Marguerite Parks, Gary Howard and many more.

This film explores the causes and consequences of the current American justice system on marginalized communities, focusing the various kinds of trauma: personal, interpersonal, community, and generational. It also addresses the school-to-prison pipeline, the need for comprehensive criminal justice reform, and the importance of healing and restorative practices.  It is designed to lead to dialogue.

Recommended by MOSES Madison

Documentary film on the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Includes Stevenson's own story and the work of EJI, including their current work creating the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which is dedicated to the more than 4,400 African American victims of lynching.

Recommended by MOSES Madison

Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished using the writer’s original words, as read by actor Samuel L. Jackson, with still and film archival material. The film draws upon Baldwin’s notes on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. connecting them to what's happening today

Recommended by YWCA Madison..

An information-packed film about race, our broken justice system and the effects of mass incarceration. DuVernay's film is based heavily on Michelle Alexander's book “The New Jim Crow." Both demonstrate that our criminal justice system is an extension of slavery and Jim Crow laws and as such are a racialized system of control. Usually only available with a Netflix subscription, in April 2020 Netflix put the full film on YouTube for free as an aid to educators.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, thousands of angry citizens of Wisconsin descended upon northern Wisconsin boat landings to protest Ojibwe Indian treaty rights- specifically spearfishing for walleye pike. In this DVD produced in 2010, both a short history of that 'perfect storm' of economic, environmental and cultural factors that were in play at the time, and explores what has changed since.

This film includes many moving stories from racial justice leaders including Amer Ahmend, Michael Benitez, Barbie-Danielle DeCarlo, Joy DeGruy, Ericka Huggins, Humaira Jackson, Yuko Kodama, Peggy McIntosh, Rinku Sen, Tilman Smith and Tim Wise. Many of the stories included here have been shared widely on social media in the last few years- this is the original film that weaves those clips together and taken together are intended to deepen the conversation on race.