African American Studies

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African American Studies Arkansas Humanities Council, promote understanding, appreciation, and use of the humanities in Arkansas through awarding grants http://www.arkhums.org/component/option,com_k2/format,feed/id,6/task,category/type,atom/view,itemlist/ 2012-02-07T21:17:05Z Arkansas Humanities Council - Content Management System A Place We Called Our Own: A History of Black Schools in Columbia County, Arkansas 2009-08-25T19:59:12Z 2009-08-25T19:59:12Z http://www.arkhums.org/component/option,com_k2/id,95/view,item/

VHS, 30 min., 1998 With grant funds from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the W.C. Kellogg Foundation, the Southwest Arkansas Community Development Corporation researched and produced a film that explains where and how African Americans were educated in Columbia County before desegregation.  Narrated by an alumna of Columbia School and a VISTA volunteer on staff with the CDC, the program visits several of the school sites and makes use of oral interviews with former students and personnel of the various schools.

VHS, 30 min., 1996 This exhibit explores the background and accomplishments of seven African American classical musicians and their ties to Arkansas. It includes photographs, newspaper articles, memorabilia and "interpretative text" gathered from the archives and special collections of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and other contributors. See also: EXHIBITS And So I Sing

DVD, 60 min., 1993 The 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike that became the last crusade of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the focus of this documentary. Although remembered as the struggle which culminated in the assassination of Dr. King, the strike is significant in itself as a watershed event in the civil rights movement. It was a tragic test of Dr. King's philosophy of nonviolence, and the key event in King's attempt to merge civil rights issues with a broader concern for economic issues.

VHS, 30 min.,  2004 This video, produced by Jack Hill of TeleVision of Arkansas, was released in 2004 in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the quiet and successful integration of the public schools in Charleston, Arkansas. Education in Craighead County: A Way Out for African Americans 2009-08-25T20:05:47Z 2009-08-25T20:05:47Z http://www.arkhums.org/component/option,com_k2/id,99/view,item/

VHS, 30 min.,  2004 This documentary uses interviews, photographs, historical records, newspaper accounts, and letters to tell the story of education for Black Americans in Craighead County.  It shows how much Black parents valued education and how they felt that education would prepare their children for a better life. Eliza Miller High School: Ye Shall Know Them By Their Fruits 2009-08-25T20:06:22Z 2009-08-25T20:06:22Z http://www.arkhums.org/component/option,com_k2/id,100/view,item/

VHS, 34 min.,  2003 In 1925, Eliza Miller, the wife of a successful Black businessman in the Helena area, bought and donated land to the local school district for a high school to be built to serve the African American students in the area.  The video includes interviews with historians, former teachers, and graduates of Eliza Miller High School.

DVD, 56 min., 1987 An award-winning documentary which takes viewers on a disturbing voyage through American social history. It traces for the first time the evolution of the deeply rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice. Light is shed on the origins and devastating consequences of this 150-year-long parade of bigotry. Situating each stereotype historically in white society's shifting needs to justify racist oppression from slavery to the present, Ethnic Notions reveals how popular culture both shapes and reflects public attitudes.

VHS, 60 min. each, 1987, Study guide available CC Six part comprehensive television documentary on the American civil rights movement, 1954-1965. The series focuses on the people, the events, and the issues of those turbulent years. 1. Awakenings (1954-1956) - Highlights of the events that began the modern black freedom struggle. 2. Fighting Back (1957-1962) Federal Troops in front of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas - Exploration of the lawsuits brought by parents on behalf of their children when blacks rejected the notion of "separate but equal" education. 3. Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961) - Four related stories are explored: the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960; the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC; the impact of the movement on the 1960 presidential campaign; and the freedom rides of 1961. 4. No Easy Walk (1962-66) - The civil rights phenomenon is placed in a broad historical context, describing the growing commitment of activists to nonviolent tactics. 5. Mississippi: Is This America? (1962-1964) - Focuses on the extraordinary personal risks faced by ordinary citizens as they assumed responsibility for social change, particularly the 1962-1964 voting rights campaign inMore than 25,000 marchers joined the historic march from Selma to Montgomery. Mississippi. 6. Bridge to Freedom (1965) - Highlights the historic fifty mile march for freedom in Selma, Alabama as the last great gathering of the southern-based movement, and provides an opportunity to examine the gains made by the civil rights protests.

VHS, 55 min. each, 1989, Study guide available CC Eight-part continuation of the powerful civil rights series that brought together millions of blacks and whites in an affirmation of the democratic process. Here is the most comprehensive reappraisal of the leaders and events that brought the civil rights movement from the south to the rest of the nation from 1965 through the 1980's. 1. The Time Has Come (1964-1966) - Explores the influence of Malcolm X and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in their call for "Black Power" and the 1966 Meredith March Against Fear in Mississippi. 2. Two Societies (1965-1968) - Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference travel to Chicago in an attempt to apply southern movement tactics to the urban north. In Detroit, frustration and anger build to urban violence as blacks and law officers clash on city streets and America appears to be a nation out of control. 3. Power! (1966-1968) - Blacks look for new ways to control their communities - the ballot box, the streets, and the schools. Among the events profiled: Carl Stokes becomes the first black mayor of Cleveland; in Oakland, young blacks form the Black Panther Party in an effort to quell continuing police harassment. 4. The Promised Land (1967-1968) - Moved by an increasing level of poverty, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his staff begin to organize a Poor People's Campaign in Washington, DC, in an effort to embarrass and motivate a reluctant federal government. In the midst of the campaign, Dr. King is called away to help black sanitation workers on strike in Memphis and is assassinated there on April 4, 1968. 5. Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-1972) - An awareness and sense of pride emerge through the struggle of World Heavyweight Champion Cassius Clay to be called by his new Islamic name, Muhammad Ali. A new generation of African Americans begins to redefine itself. 6. A Nation of Law? (1968-1971) - In Chicago, Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are killed during an early morning raid by police; inmates at New York's Attica prison take over the prison in an effort to attract national attention to intolerable conditions. These events come to symbolize the violence of a hardened political regime. 7. The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-1980) - Examines the relationship between law and grassroots political struggle as it chronicles black efforts to inject substance into promises of equality. The movement's focus is on the keys to the kingdom: jobs and education. 8. Back to the Movement (1979-mid 1980's) - Conclusion of the series with an examination of the political and economic changes experienced concurrently by two cities in the north and south: Chicago and Miami. Includes retrospective of the people who made this movement a force for change in America. We listen as those who have worked for justice reflect on their continuing struggle.

VHS, 30 min., 1994 Skills and work songs are documented of the gandy dancers, the railroad section crew members whose physical movements were synchronized by a "caller." The caller sung work chants ensuring safety and pacing, while spiritually uplifting the men at their toil. The gandy dancers expertise in railroad track maintenance and their work song tradition is unparalleled.

DVD, 58 min, 1994 Chronicles one of the most momentous and least known sagas of American history the great migration of African Americans from the rural South to Northern and Western cities. Between 1917 and 1970, in two great waves interrupted by the Depression, 6 million blacks created a dynamic culture outside the South, changing America forever.

DVD, 56 min.,  2003 The 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision by the United States Supreme Court required school districts to integrate the schools and end the long standing 'separate, but equal' policy that had been in place for many years.  Many districts opposed the court's ruling; but a few, including the school board in the small town of Hoxie in Northeast Arkansas, voted to comply voluntarily, beginning with the start of school in July of 1955.  They felt that it was the right thing to do.  This video details the conflicts and emotions that erupted after the media and other outsiders became involved.

VHS, 57 min., 1989 A classical tribute to the life and philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. interpreted through a dramatic ballet focusing on five key events of the 1960s civil rights movement: Rosa Park's refusal to relinquish her seat on an Alabama bus, the historic march to Selma, Dr. King's letter from a Birmingham jail, his assassination, and funeral.

VHS, 25 min., 1986 When 200,000 civil rights marchers, black and white, gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, they expected to hear strong words from their spiritual leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. What they did not expect was a speech of such heartfelt passion and poetic eloquence that it echoes still in our memory.

DVD, 60 min.,  2002 This video combines documentary footage and interviews with dramatization of different interpretations of Nat Turner's slave rebellion and its impact on the history of racial conflicts in America. See also: EXHIBITS Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement II Miles of Smiles: Years of Struggle 2009-08-25T20:14:35Z 2009-08-25T20:14:35Z http://www.arkhums.org/component/option,com_k2/id,110/view,item/

DVD, 60 min., 1983, Study guide available Bringing to light a little-known chapter in American civil rights and labor history, this film tells the story of black pullman porters. Working for tips, the porters provided elegant personal service to overnight railroad passengers for 100 years after the Civil War. Rebuked by white organized labor, they miraculously formed the first black American trade union in 1925 under the leadership of A. Phillip Randolph.

VHS, 32 min., 1986, Study guide available For the first time, the life and accomplishments, the struggle and hard labor of black Arkansans from territorial days to the present are documented with rare photographs, maps, illustrations, newspapers, and lively scholarly interpretation. The story is organized into five chronological time periods: Black Pioneers Before 1803, No Share in the Harvest: 1803-1860, First Freedom: 1860-1900, Tell 'Em We're Risin': 1900-1954, and We Speak for Ourselves: 1954-1986. See also: EXHIBITS Persistence of the Spirit

VHS, 40 min., 1981 Study guide available Patricia McGraw brings to life the personalities and stories of four notable black women: Phillis Wheatley reveals her talent in composing neoclassical poetry in colonial America; Harriet Tubman speaks movingly about slavery, freedom and the Underground Railroad; Sojourner Truth displays her fearless commitment to the abolitionist and feminist causes; Rosa Parks describes the mixture of humiliation and triumph in her heart as she sits on a Montgomery bus in 1955.

DVD, 47 min., 1990 The story of segregation and the brilliant legal assault on it which launched the Civil Rights movement. It is also a moving and long-overdue tribute to a visionary but little known black lawyer, Charles Hamilton Houston, "the man who killed Jim Crow." Moving from slavery to civil rights, The Road to Brown provides a concise history of how African Americans finally won full legal equality under the Constitution.

VHS, 45 min., 1984 This study of migration from Fordyce, Arkansas, and Tallulah, Louisiana, to Las Vegas, Nevada, as early as the 1920's invites some interesting speculation on bonding and white/black relations in these southern towns. Backed by research of Little Rock black studies specialist Ruth Patterson, the film is an in-depth look into a little-known story.