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Topic Guide
Documentaries on Racism, White Privilege, Identity, Race, and More.
Staff-created list
These documentaries are good starting points if you're looking to learn more about topics such as systemic racism, white privilege, police brutality, and the #blacklivesmatter movement, or also if you're looking to gain a better understanding of the protests currently happening around the world. While the majority of these documentaries focus on American communities, they echo experiences of marginalized communities around the globe, including Canada.
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EPLPicks
EPLPicks
Edmonton Public Library
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An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism.
An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism.
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Being young is tough, especially if you're Black, Latino, Arab or Asian. In a city like Montreal, you can get targeted and treated as a criminal for no go...Show more
Being young is tough, especially if you're Black, Latino, Arab or Asian. In a city like Montreal, you can get targeted and treated as a criminal for no good reason. Zero Tolerance reveals how deep seated prejudice can be. On one side are the city's young people, and on the other, its police force. Two worlds, two visions. Yet one of these groups is a minority, while the other wields real power. One has no voice, while the other makes life-and-death decisions.
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For years, Tim Wise's bestselling books and spellbinding lectures have challenged some of our most basic assumptions about race in America. White Like Me ...Show more
For years, Tim Wise's bestselling books and spellbinding lectures have challenged some of our most basic assumptions about race in America. White Like Me is the first film to bring the full range of his work to the screen -- to show how white privilege continues to shape individual attitudes, electoral politics, and government policy in ways too many white people never stop to think about.
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Streaming Video - 2019
Web Resource
Black Feminist is a feature length documentary film surrounding the double edged sword of racial and gender oppression that black women face in America. T...Show more
Black Feminist is a feature length documentary film surrounding the double edged sword of racial and gender oppression that black women face in America. This documentary is told through interviews from scholars, lecturers, writers, business owners, veterans, comedians and authors. In addition to information interviews, this documentary is narrated by our storybook character LaToya Johnson, played by Nadirah Lugg.
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Streaming Video - 2017
Web Resource
This documentary pays tribute to a group of Canadians who took racism to court. They are Canada's unsung heroes in the fight for Black civil rights. Focus...Show more
This documentary pays tribute to a group of Canadians who took racism to court. They are Canada's unsung heroes in the fight for Black civil rights. Focusing on the 1930s to the 1950s, this film documents the struggle of 6 people who refused to accept inequality. Featured here, among others, are Viola Desmond, a woman who insisted on keeping her seat at the Roseland movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946 rather than moving to the section normally reserved for the city's Black population, and Fred Christie, who took his case to the Supreme Court after being denied service at a Montreal tavern in 1936.
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THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, tells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convict...Show more
THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, tells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park in 1989. This Peabody Award winning film chronicles the Central Park Jogger case, for the first time from the perspective of the five teenagers whose lives were upended by this miscarriage of justice.
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Streaming Video - 2017
Web Resource
This short film depicts Africville, a small black settlement that lay within the city limits of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the 1960s, the families there wer...Show more
This short film depicts Africville, a small black settlement that lay within the city limits of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the 1960s, the families there were uprooted and their homes demolished in the name of urban renewal and integration. More than 20 years later, the site of the community of Africville is a stark, under-utilized park. Former residents, their descendants and some of the decision-makers speak out and, with the help of archival photographs and films, tell the story of that painful relocation.
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The Brown Bookshelf is honoured to host the KidLit4BlackLives Rally that took place on June 4, 2020. Led by Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jason...Show more
The Brown Bookshelf is honoured to host the KidLit4BlackLives Rally that took place on June 4, 2020. Led by Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jason Reynolds, the Rally featured inspiring words, music, and numerous calls to action in support of equity and justice.
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Streaming Video - 2016
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Another masterful documentary from Ken Burns, East Lake Meadows: A Public Housing Story gives voice to some of the most marginalized people in our society...Show more
Another masterful documentary from Ken Burns, East Lake Meadows: A Public Housing Story gives voice to some of the most marginalized people in our society and raises critical questions about how we have created concentrated poverty and limited housing opportunity for African Americans.
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This documentary welcomes dialogue around racial inequality, policing, and the Criminal Justice System by focusing on Eric Garners case. We hope viewers w...Show more
This documentary welcomes dialogue around racial inequality, policing, and the Criminal Justice System by focusing on Eric Garners case. We hope viewers will increase their understanding of issues plaguing Black and Brown Communities by witnessing a massive group of protesters unite for the purpose of justice.
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Director Mina Shum makes her foray into feature documentary by reopening the file on a watershed moment in Canadian race relations – the infamous Sir Geor...Show more
Director Mina Shum makes her foray into feature documentary by reopening the file on a watershed moment in Canadian race relations – the infamous Sir George Williams Riot. Over four decades after a group of Caribbean students accused their professor of racism, triggering an explosive student uprising, Shum locates the protagonists and listens as they set the record straight, trying to make peace with the past.
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This series of short films features everyday people as they discuss issues of race and identity in America. Get full access to the New York Times with your EPL card: https://www.epl.ca/resource/new-york-times/.
This series of short films features everyday people as they discuss issues of race and identity in America. Get full access to the New York Times with your EPL card: https://www.epl.ca/resource/new-york-times/.
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In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, set the stage for a historic confrontation that would grab international headlines and sear itself into the Canadian consciousness.
In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, set the stage for a historic confrontation that would grab international headlines and sear itself into the Canadian consciousness.
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Streaming Video - 2018
Web Resource
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise looks at the last five decades of African American history through the eyes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., exploring...Show more
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise looks at the last five decades of African American history through the eyes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., exploring the tremendous gains and persistent challenges of these years. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, scholarly analysis and rare archival footage, the series illuminates our recent past, while raising urgent questions about the future of the African American community-and our nation as a whole.
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Iris Baez, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, never meant to become an activist. Kadiatou Diallo never meant to leave her home in Africa and move to the U.S.,...Show more
Iris Baez, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, never meant to become an activist. Kadiatou Diallo never meant to leave her home in Africa and move to the U.S., to fight for justice for her son. Doris Busch Boskey, a Jewish woman from the suburbs, never thought she'd become a spokesperson against police brutality. This film profiles three women from very different walks of life who find themselves united to seek justice after their sons are unjustly killed by police. Their stories are tragic, but their courage is transformative.
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In the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the country's recent focus on youth violence, police brutality, poverty and marginalized communitie...Show more
In the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the country's recent focus on youth violence, police brutality, poverty and marginalized communities, We All We Got is an elegy of urban America. The film is an intimate portrait of people affected by violence: including community activists, kids, and cops. It navigates the tragedy and persistence of families impacted by violence, the perseverance of affected families, and the outpouring support of local leaders and residents who highlight these social issues in Chicago.
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Streaming Video - 2017
Web Resource
The first documentary to explore the role of photography in shaping the identity, aspirations and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to th...Show more
The first documentary to explore the role of photography in shaping the identity, aspirations and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present, THROUGH A LENS DARKLY probes the recesses of American history by discovering images that have been suppressed, forgotten and lost.
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Distinguished historian John H. Bracey Jr. offers a provocative analysis of the devastating economic, political, and social effects of racism on white Ame...Show more
Distinguished historian John H. Bracey Jr. offers a provocative analysis of the devastating economic, political, and social effects of racism on white Americans. In a departure from analyses of racism that have focused primarily on white power and privilege, Bracey trains his focus on the high price that white people, especially working class whites, have paid for more than two centuries of divisive race-based policies and attitudes.
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