Resources for Week Five

 Responses to the Nightmare of the Jim Crow Era                                                              

                                     Motion Pictures

All three films vividly portray contentious issues of the Jim Crow era: The Great Debaters is set in a small all Black college in a small community in 1930s Texas in which several students develop formidable debating skills; Marshall is about a racial assault case in which the young Thurgood Marshall defends a Black defendant in 1940s Baltimore, and The Long Walk Home is set in 1956 Montgomery Alabama during the year-long bus boycott led by Martin Luther King in which a white woman and her Black maid decide how they will respond to the boycott. Based on a true story.

Documentaries

This documentary explores racism in schools, housing and jobs in Canada during the first half of the 20th century: revealing and poignant.

A powerful documentary about a group of courageous young supporters of civil rights who risked their lives to ride throughout the South on interstate buses in 1961 to challenge unconstitional laws that banned interracial people from sitting together.

Another insightful series written and hosted by Henry Louis Gates

This earlier series by Gates spans the history of African Americans from their time in Africa to the Civil Rights movement. Everything that Gates does is enriching.

 Books

This powerful film is based on the book Unexampled Courage; I highly recommend both the book and the film.  

This powerful book examines the difficult long-term relationship between Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan, her tormentor who is behind her in the iconic 1957 photograph. The book also reveals the difficult life that Eckford experienced as a result of her decision to be one of the Little Rock Nine to desegegrate the local high school.

A wonderful, inspiring memoir about a young girl who was born into a poor sharecropper's family and yet eventually became a University President.