Films

Following is information on a general list of films that might be used with Changing America. This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it an ALA-reviewed or recommended list. Please preview films for quality and appropriateness for your audience.

Each library wishing to show films or videos related to Changing America to the public must arrange for public performance rights (PPR) and payment of fees for those rights.

The following films can be rented from Swank Motion Pictures (www.swank.com, 1-800-876-5577); Swank rental fees include public performance rights.

 

To mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the National Endowment for the Humanities developed a special project as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative. In the Created Equal film project, the endowment selected four NEH-funded documentary films on Civil Rights history and created programming resources to guide public conversations about the changing meanings of freedom and equality in U.S. history. The films are:

The Abolitionists (PBS, 2012)
Abolitionist allies Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimké turned a despised fringe movement against chattel slavery into a force that literally changed the nation.

Slavery by Another Name (PBS, 2012)
Slavery by Another Name challenges one of our country’s most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery ended with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

Freedom Riders (PBS, 2010)
The story of the Civil Rights Movement interstate busing protest campaign.

The Loving Story (HBO, 2012)
The film tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving to examine the drama, the history, and the current state of interracial marriage and tolerance in the United States.

The first three films and a fifteen-minute excerpt from The Loving Story will be streamed on the NEH Created Equal project website. A limited number of sets of the four films will be available to exhibition sites that did not receive the films through the Created Equal project. The films are also available for purchase from various sources, with and without public performance rights.
 

Additional films:

Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided (PBS, 2001)
This six-part program examines the Lincolns’ family life and marriage, Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and the Civil War era. Directed by David Grubin.

The Bus (1965)
Documentary about the March on Washington. Celebrated filmmaker Haskell Wexler ("Medium Cool") traveled with the San Francisco delegation, photographing and conversing candidly with the participants, capturing the significance and drama of this historic trip.

The Butler (2013)
As Cecil Gaines serves eight presidents during his tenure as a butler at the White House, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and other major events affect this man's life, family, and American society.

The Civil War (1990)
Well-known PBS series by Ken Burns traces the course of the U.S. Civil War from the abolitionist movement through all the major battles to the death of President Lincoln and the beginnings of Reconstruction.

Django Unchained (2012)
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years1954-1965 (PBS, 2009)
Tells the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today. Winner of numerous awards.

Glory (1989)
Story of a volunteer company of African-American soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Denzel Washington won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Also stars Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman.

The Help (2011)
An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids' point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.

The Intruder (1962)
A man in a gleaming white suit comes to a small Southern town on the eve of integration. He calls himself a social reformer. But what he does is stir up trouble--trouble he soon finds he can't control.

Lincoln (1988)
Made for TV movie taken from Gore Vidal’s novel, Lincoln. Sam Waterston as Lincoln, Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Todd Lincoln. Received several directing and acting awards.

Lincoln (2012)
As the Civil War continues to rage, America's president struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield and as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on the decision to emancipate the slaves. Directed by Steven Spielberg.

The March (PBS, 2013)
The story of the making of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, told by the people who organized and participated in it.

Nothing But a Man (1964)
A proud black man and his school-teacher wife face discriminatory challenges in 1960s America.

One Potato, Two Potato (1964)
Study of interracial marriage in the 1960's

The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights (2013)
The film follows Whitney Young’s journey from segregated Kentucky to the national campaign for equal rights. During the turbulent 60s, he was a diplomat between those in power and those striving for change.

A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
A substantial insurance payment could mean either financial salvation or personal ruin for a poor black family.

To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.

12 Years a Slave (2013)
In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.

A list of films screened at the March on Washington Film Festival:
http://marchonwashingtonfilmfestival.org/films/