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Our programming aims to celebrate black history more than just during the month February, but Black History Month is certainly a great time to pause and reflect on African American history both distant and recent. We’ve collected some\u00a0of our favorite Independent Lens<\/em> films that delve into different aspects of black history and culture through the years.<\/p>\n Seek out these films, and then watch two brand new documentaries\u00a0airing this month, starting with Monday\u2019s premiere of Thomas Allen Harris\u2019s film Through a Lens Darkly<\/em><\/a>, and continuing the following week with American Denial<\/em><\/a>, which will surely start conversations in living rooms across the nation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n People:<\/b><\/p>\n The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/span> \u201c<\/span>revisits the contributions of a less-celebrated member [of the Civil Rights Movement], Whitney M. Young Jr.,\u201d wrote Neil Genzlinger\u00a0in the\u00a0New York Times<\/a><\/em>. \u201cIn doing so it reminds us how much turbulence there was behind the touchstone marches and speeches of the era. You\u2019re also aware that Young\u2019s approach had its limits, especially as the Vietnam War became a polarizing issue. Young had worked closely with President Lyndon B. Johnson on civil rights and economic matters, but he found himself in an awkward spot as Dr. King and other black leaders came out against the war. In turbulent times a moderate man is sometimes in the most uncomfortable position of all.\u201d In that sense the film makes for a fascinating companion piece to the recent feature Selma<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Available on DVD via PBS Shop<\/a> | Available to stream on Amazon Instant<\/p>\n Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock<\/b><\/a><\/em> <\/b><\/span>is a moving portrait of another underappreciated figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Bates forced Little Rock’s Central High School to desegregate in one of the seminal moments of the fight for civil rights.\u00a0 [Note to Arkansas folks: the film is being screened for free<\/a> on Feb. 16 at the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.<\/span>]<\/p>\n Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness<\/a>\u00a0<\/i><\/b>is by two of the filmmakers behind the aforementioned Independent Lens<\/em> film American Denial<\/em>\u00a0and would make a swell double-feature with that documentary. Wrote Cynthia Fuchs<\/a>: “The story of Melville J. Herskovits is at once familiar and peculiar. ‘I think of him as kind of like the Elvis of black American studies,’ says Harvard historian Vincent Brown. Like Presley, he appropriates from an existing culture, in his study and support of black Americans at a time of overt racism and oppression, the 1930s\u2013\u201850s. But even as he ‘mainstreams some of these ideas about the relationship between Africa and African American culture,’ Herskovits also misunderstands, exploits, and evaluates his object of study. And so his relationship to that object remains vexed.”<\/p>\n The Trials of Muhammad Ali<\/i><\/b><\/a>: <\/b><\/span>He may have been the World Champion in the ring, but the toughest fight of boxer Muhammad Ali’s life was held outside the sports arena. Watch Bill Siegel\u2019s fascinating portrait of Ali\u2019s protests against the Vietnam War, and read this comic created exclusively for Independent Lens<\/em><\/a> by artist Gavin Aung Than. Of the film, Jamie Rich <\/a>wrote, \u201cthe emergent image is of a man who valued his convictions above all else, as tenacious and bold in his personal life as he was in the ring.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Available on DVD via Shop PBS<\/a>\u00a0| Also now streaming on Netflix Instant<\/p>\n Music & Culture:<\/strong><\/p>\n The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975<\/a><\/b><\/em> is an unusual documentary in that it is a compilation of footage shot by Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power movement in the U.S., and wasn’t\u00a0edited together until decades later by\u00a0contemporary Swedish filmmaker G\u00f6ran Olsson. Read this fascinating review by Wesley Morris<\/a>, in which he concludes: “[T]his isn’t a work of propaganda or heart-tugging. Olsson doesn’t tell us how to feel. He doesn\u2019t have to. His sharing this footage is a moral act whose righteousness can stand on its own. The material obviates the need for an outsider\u2019s commentary. It\u2019s powerful, vivid, inspiring, demoralizing, and damning enough to speak for itself.” And what musically inclined documentary would be complete without a companion Spotify playlist to bop along to after you see the film (or, heck, even before).<\/p>\n Available on DVD via Shop PBS<\/a><\/p>\n Soul Food Junkies<\/a><\/em>: <\/b>Shift from music to food with Byron Hurt’s “highly personal, often funny film [exploring]\u00a0how traditional Southern comfort fare became entwined with African American identity. The film\u00a0questions whether this food, often loaded with salt, fat, and sugar, is doing its consumers more harm than good” (via NPR<\/a>). Afterward, hold the guilt with these\u00a08 healthy soul food-inspired recipes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Available on DVD via Shop PBS<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Also available to stream on Amazon Instant Video<\/p>\n When I Rise<\/a><\/b><\/em>\u00a0is the\u00a0the inspiring story of <\/b><\/span>Barbara Smith Conrad, who broke ground as an African American opera singer in Texas during a time of segregation (and very few African American opera singers). Read more about Conrad’s story and the film in this New York Times<\/em> feature, “With a Voice and a Spirit, Triumphing Over Racism<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Available on DVD via Shop PBS<\/a><\/p>\n Events:<\/b><\/p>\n More Than a Month<\/a><\/em>: <\/b>For an alternate, provocative take on Black History Month, an African American filmmaker thinks being relegated to a single month is actually an insult, and embarks on a cross-country campaign to show why.\u00a0You can also take your own journey across the landscape of African American history\u00a0with an accompanying app the filmmaker created, called “More than a Map(p)<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Let the Fire Burn<\/a><\/b><\/em>: A startling story set in the ’70s and ’80s but, wrote David Edelstein<\/a>, filmmaker Jason Osder “has made a documentary that\u2019s astonishingly in the present tense.” It is, adds Tasha Robinson<\/a>, “a fascinating look at official overreaction, government overreach, and the corrupting effects of prejudice on powerful institutions.”<\/p>\n Available on DVD via Shop PBS <\/a>|\u00a0Also now streaming\u00a0on Netflix Instant<\/p>\n Spies of Mississippi<\/a><\/em><\/b>,\u00a0<\/em>another film about the past that still feels eerily timely, tells the\u00a0story of how the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission tried to derail the Civil Rights Movement. “Weaving together fascinating interviews with images of the Commission\u2019s surveillance photos and thousands upon thousands of files on the people they watched\u2014some of them active civil rights workers, others everyday people\u2014Spies of Mississippi<\/em>\u00a0is as cohesive as it is engaging, another interesting portrait of a time in our past too often regarded as a sort of ancient history,” wrote Zeba Blay\u00a0for Indiewire<\/a>.\u00a0“Here, the links between the activities of the Sovereignty Commission and our government\u2019s activities today are made clear, ending on a disturbing but thought provoking final note that asks the viewer to always question the morality of a government that spies on its citizens.”<\/p>\n DVD available via Shop PBS<\/a>\u00a0| Also now streaming on Netflix Instant<\/p>\n