Black Lives Matter: Issues

A majority of Americans say race relations in the United States are bad, and of those, about seven-in-ten say things are getting even worse. Roughly two-thirds say it has become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views since Donald Trump was elected, even if not necessarily more acceptable.

(Pew Research Center) Public has negative views of the country’s racial progress; more than half say Trump has made race relations worse

(Gallup) An in-depth listing of Gallup polling surrounding the issue of race relations in the United States

Films on Demand (56:15 min)
This PBS town hall meeting, moderated by Gwen Ifill, explores the many issues around race relations that have come to the fore after a white gunman shot and killed nine African-American parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, and the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds that followed. Includes a segment on Black Lives Matter movement.

Films on Demand (46:37 min)
This follow up documentary to KKK: The Fight for White Supremacy sees filmmaker Dan Murdoch back in the USA to revisit some of the people he met from the Ku Klux Klan and also meet members of the Black Liberation Movement. Having previously documented clashes between these two opposing visions of America—a resurgent KKK and a growing Black Power movement—his aim now is to find out what black power means, what its motivations are and why this movement seems to be gaining traction. With rare access to members of the Black Liberation Movement, Murdoch quickly finds himself in the midst of an armed black militia, outraged at the treatment of black people at the hands of police, patrolling the streets of their communities and calling for change.

Films on Demand (1 hr 25 min)
Once viewed as a model for urban America, Detroit has experienced what many believe to be the worst downturn in living standards and population of any large American city. Exactly how and why such a dramatic change occurred is still being debated, but the answers will undoubtedly shed light on challenges facing the U.S. as a whole. This documentary searches for the causes behind Motor City’s disturbing decline. Questioning a widely held explanation that focuses on the collapse of the automobile industry, the film argues that Detroit’s woes are largely political in nature. Viewers learn about vast socioeconomic differences between the city and neighboring communities and how issues connected to these disparities were mismanaged by federal, state, and local officials for decades.

Films on Demand (52:39 min)
With race relations stretched to breaking point in some American cities, the supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan says it’s seeing a surge in membership. They claim that white Americans—angry at what they perceive as attacks on their heritage—are joining in large numbers, convinced they must prepare for a race war. With access to the leaders of the Loyal White Knights chapter in North Carolina, this film follows their secretive rituals

Films on Demand (56 min)
This program portrays the Jim Crow era, when African Americans struggled to build their own worlds within the harsh, narrow confines of segregation. At the turn of the 20th century, a steady stream of African Americans left the South, fleeing the threat of racial violence and searching for opportunities in the North and West. Leaders like Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey organized, offering different strategies to further black empowerment and equality. The ascendance of black arts and culture showed that a community with a strong identity and sense of pride was taking hold in spite of Jim Crow. The Harlem Renaissance redefined how America saw African Americans — and how African Americans saw themselves

Films on Demand (57 min)
Mississippi ReMixed tells the personal story of Canadian, Myra Ottewell, who returns to her birthplace in Jackson, Mississippi determined to celebrate the great racial transformations in the state since the 1960s, but discovers that understanding race relations is far more complicated than she bargained for. Mixed with rarely seen archival footage, the controversial documentary explores the state of race relations today, celebrates the transformations occurring, and exposes the struggles and successes Mississippi is having with integration today.