Guides: African American Studies: Audio Visual

Spotlight on...

Black Studies in Video
Black Studies offers a variety of African American studies databases, including full-text, audio and video, across a range of History, Literature, and Performing Arts sources. The current version of ASP's Black Studies includes Black Studies in Video, with full-text and audio resources forthcoming. Part of the Alexander Street database.

Documentaries

America to Me
Ten part documentary on racial inequities in a high performing suburban Chicago high school.
African American Lives
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s PBS miniseries focusing on African American genealogical research.
The Black Unicorn : Dudley Randall & the Broadside Press
"Provides a history of the Broadside Press and a biography of its founder, Dudley Randall. Includes interviews with Mr. Randall and other authors involved with the press over a twenty-five year period."
Black and Blue The Story of Gerald Ford, Willis Ward, and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech Football Game
"In 1934, Georgia Tech refused to play football against Michigan unless the team benched Willis Ward, an African American player. Ward's teammate and friend, Gerald Ford, nearly quit the team in protest. This event shaped the lives of Ward and Ford and the two formed a friendship that lasted for the rest of their lives."
Boss: The Black Experience in Business
"From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson comes a film that educates, informs, and examines more than 150 years of African American men and women who have embodied the qualities that are the heart of the American entrepreneurial spirit."
Eyes on the Prize
Fourteen part documentary series on the American Civil Rights Movement.
Good Hair and Other Dubious Distinctions
"The program highlights issues of pressure, conformity, and acceptance; looks at beauty as a social construction; and examines how these issues have different impacts on men and women of different ages."
Soundtrack for a Revolution
"The story of the American civil rights movement through its music, the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, and more, as they fought for justice and equality."
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
"Explore with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed-forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds."
Thurgood Marshall: Justice for All
"Uses archival footage, period accounts and interviews with family members and colleagues to chronicle the monumental life of the first African-American to sit on the Supreme Court."
Unnatural Causes: In Inequality Making Us Sick?
Documentary series explores racial and economic inequalities in health.

Feature Films + Filmmakers

The 50 Best Films from Black Directors
WNYC Studios' The Takeaway Podcast episode featuring critics from Newsday and Slate.
12 Years a Slave
Based on the true story of Solomon Northup. It is 1841, and Northup, an accomplished, free citizen of New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Catalog description: Stripped of his identity and deprived of all dignity, Northup is ultimately purchased by ruthless plantation owner Edwin Epps and must find the strength within to survive.
13th
Ana DuVernay's award-winning documentary on race, justice and mass incarceration in the United States.
Ava DuVernay
Films in the collection include Selma and A Wrinkle in Time. 13th can be viewed free online via Netflix's YouTube Channel.
Barry Jenkins
Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk
Belle
Catalog description: Although Dido Elizabeth Belle, an eighteenth-century English woman of mixed race, is raised in privilege by her aristocratic great-uncle and his wife, she is denied a proper social standing because of her skin color. But when Dido falls in love with a young idealist lawyer who aspires to create positive change, she finds herself caught between two worlds.
Gordon Parks
Solomon Northup's Odyssey Twelve Years as a Slave, Super Fly, and Shaft.
Jordan Peele
DVDs in the library's collection include Get Out, Us, and other titles Peele has been involved with.
Ryan Coogler
Creed, Black Panther, and Fruitvale Station.
Spike Lee
Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Blackkklansman, and other productions produced or directed by Spike Lee. Most of these titles are available on DVD.
Waiting to Exhale
"The story of four African-American women who journey through a modern labyrinth of husbands and lovers, jobs and makeovers."

Finding and Accessing Audio Visual Materials

Three things to know about finding and accessing audio visual materials in the collection:

Streaming video may be accessed using your Detroit Mercy log in if the title is available through one of the library's database subscriptions. If the video is available through a website, log in is likely unnecessary.
DVDs are available to check out for seven days. Mobile DVD players may also be checked out at the Check-Out Desk.
More titles are available. Search the library catalog (by title, keywords, subject, author, name, etc.), visit the Academic Video Online database, or contact a librarian for assistance if you can't find what you are looking for.