Black History month always take place every year in the month of February. When I first took the initiative to write about Black History month I was so excited and yet distraught at the same time because I have so much love for black history month and the people that I know this is one thing I don’t want to mess up. African-Americans as a whole have been through so much from slavery, the Jim Crow era and now the prison industrial complex where the justice system is working against people of color. So how can I get people to care about this month? For me being a movie lover that I am, I’m going to with movies to give you a visual of the struggles all black people have gone through and survived.
Here are my top movies and documentaries and I recommend you to watch this month.
- The Butler
The Butler is a movie about a young man who leaves his hometown in the south to first work at a top elite hotel and ends up working as a butler at the White House.
I really recommend people to watch this. Although some of it is fictional this movie will take you through the years of the administration from the 1960s to the 1980s. You will get to see what it was like when John F. Kennedy was president to Ronald Reagan. Here is the link if you want to know what is fictional and reality.
- Hidden Figures
This movie is about three African American women who work at NASA. Taraji P. Henson plays Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer plays Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae plays Mary Jackson. These three women are the brains behind the launch of astronaut John Glenn played by Glen Powell into space.
Back in the 1960s women who knew how to do math were called “human computers” during the time of the civil rights movements women rarely had a chance to get a promotion even though they were doing twice the work as their white colleagues.
Documentaries:
- 13th
This documentary has been so eye opening to me. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay who has also directed “ Selma” explores the history of the racial inequality in the United States. By doing so she focuses on our nations prisons and the whole industrial complex in how it mainly targets young Latinos and blacks in our justice system.
- The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
This documentary is more of an inside look at what the black panthers actually did as opposed too just hearing that they were bad people doing bad things. The Black Panther group was actually helping communities all over the states when it came down to free breakfast, healthcare and so much more. This documentary takes place from the 1960s and the impact this group had on the civil rights. You get first-hand interviews from former black panthers. Awarded by the NAACP and the River run international film festival. Formerly shown on PBS, now its officially on netflix.
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Let It Fall: Los Angeles: 1982-1992
If you were born in the early 90s you probably didn’t hear about this but if anything ask your parents about it. It’s a detail inside look about police brutality with the beatings of Rodney King. Not only does it look from the side of the LAPD but also you see all who was impacted. From Korean-Americans, Latinos and other Angelo Americans. Here is a little known fact once the riots and looting of the beatings of Rodney King were happening; the courts were fighting over jail time of O.J. Simpson and if you know anything about his case then you’ll realize how their was two sides to Los Angeles in the 90s.
To conclude my final thoughts I encourage everyone to watch these but not just in February but even once black history month is over and once you finish learn how to change our world for the better.