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Martin Luther King Jr. Day

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY
January 15, 2024

Join us for popcorn and snacks while we watch and discuss documentary topics associated with American history and Dr. King’s work.

| Trinidad Campus – Berg 105 | Valley Campus – Room 103 |

Documentary Series Featuring:

  • 9:00 – 9:30 : Slavery and the Making of America is a four-part series documenting the history of American slavery from its beginnings in the British colonies to its end in the Southern states and the years of post-Civil War Reconstruction. Drawing on a wealth of recent scholarship, it looks at slavery as an integral part of a developing nation, challenging the long held notion that slavery was exclusively a Southern enterprise. At the same time, by focusing on the remarkable stories of individual slaves, it offers new perspectives on the slave experience and testifies to the active role that Africans and African Americans took in surviving their bondage and shaping their own lives.
    YouTube Link
    9:30 – 9:55 : Discussion

  • 10:00 – 10:30 : 13th combines archival footage with testimony from activists and scholars, director Ava DuVernay's examination of the U.S. prison system looks at how the country's history of racial inequality drives the high rate of incarceration in America. This piercing, Oscar-nominated film won Best Documentary at the Emmys, the BAFTAs and the NAACP Image Awards.
    YouTube Link
    10:30 – 10:55 : Discussion 

  • 11:00 – 11:30 : King: A Filmed Record ~ From Montgomery to Memphis (1970) Nominated for the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 1970, Sidney Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s documentary chronicles several critical moments in King’s life, beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. Actor and fellow activist Harry Belafonte, as well as the likes of Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Joanne Woodward, and James Earl Jones, all appear.
    YouTube Link
    11:30 – 11:55 : Discussion 

  • 1:00 – 1:30 : Reconstruction: America after the Civil War explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy.
    YouTube Link
    1:30 – 1:55 : Discussion 

  • 2:00 – 2:30 : Slavery by Another Name is a 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans' most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation.
    PBS Link
    2:30 – 2:55 : Discussion 

  • 3:00 – 3:30 : Freedom Riders is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws in order to test and challenge a segregated interstate travel system, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.
    YouTube Link
    3:30 – 3:55 : Discussion 

  • 4:00 – 4:30 : King: A Filmed Record 
    4:30 – 4:55 : Discussion

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