PY Celebrates Juneteenth
Juneteenth is a celebration commemorating the official end of slavery, when Union army general Gordon Granger announced federal orders proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were now free, in the city of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. This order came a full two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and is recognized as the official end of slavery.
In 2020, we composed a list of media authored by Black creators in order to educate ourselves about Black experiences. Today, we’ve updated that list with more thought-provoking movies, books, and documentaries. As we have continued to educate ourselves and promote Black voices, the media on this list has sparked conversation, prompted connection, and moved our team. It’s our hope they do the same for you.
MOVIES
13th, a documentary directed and produced by Ava DuVernay, explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists, and politicians analyze the U.S. prison boom.
Good Hair, a documentary produced and narrated by Chris Rock, was created as a response to his daughter, who at age three came to him crying and asking why she didn't have "good hair." The picture offers a detailed dive into the stigmas associated with textured hair, and the styles and processes Black individuals have been forced to adopt.
I Am Not Your Negro, a documentary directed by Raoul Peck and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, explores the history of racism and the Civil Rights Movement through the lens of an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin. In the text, Baldwin reminisces about his personal experiences with Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as sharing his own perspectives.
Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins, is a look at three defining chapters in the life of Chiron, a young black man growing up in Miami. His epic journey to manhood is guided by the kindness, support, and love of the community that helps raise him.
Tamborine is Chris Rock's 2018 standup special, exclusively available on Netflix. In his first special in ten years, Chris Rock discusses political issues and pointed observations in his trademark style, while also reminiscing on his own experiences and mistakes as a young Black comic trying to launch his career.
Till, a movie directed by Chinonye Chukwu and produced by Whoopi Goldberg, follows the emotional true story of Mamie Till-Mobley as she relentlessly pursues justice for her 14-year-old son who, in 1955, was lynched while visiting Mississippi. The film paints a haunting portrait of courage in the face of injustice and the power of a mother’s love.
BOOKS
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis, the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the US.
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, authored by Gloria Jean Watkins under her penname bell hooks, discusses the importance of truly intersectional feminism. She urges that true women’s liberation only comes through the outright rejection of patriarchal, racist, and homophobic culture.
Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin tells the story of the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. The novel centers on the 14-year-old boy’s spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, written by Ibram X. Kendi is a National Book Award-winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American Society. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Now a documentary.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander, discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration. The central message, from which the book derives its title, is that "mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow."
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson tells the story of the Great Migration and the Second Great Migration, the movement of African Americans out of the South from 1915 to 1970. The book combines statistical and general analysis with three deeply personal biographies of individuals in various periods of the Great Migration.
MOVIES BASED ON BOOKS
Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi and based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, tells the true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space—a powerful, revelatory history essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America.
Watch the Movie | Read the Book
Just Mercy, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and based on the book by Bryan Stevenson, tells the story of Stevenson’s own experiences as a lawyer defending those most desperate and in need. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case goes on to transform Stevenson’s understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Watch the Movie | Read the Book
Malcolm X, a 1992 film written, produced, and directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington, is a biopic of the revolutionary Civil Rights leader based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which was started just before his death and finished by Alex Haley.
Watch the Movie | Read the Book
Mudbound is a 2017 film directed by Dee Rees based on the debut novel of author Hillary Jordan. Mudbound tells the story of black sharecroppers battling prejudice in the Jim Crow South. Two men return home from World War II to work on a farm in rural Mississippi, where they struggle to deal with racism and adjust to life after war.
Watch the Movie | Read the Book
The Hate U Give, directed by George Tillman Jr. and based on a novel by Angie Thomas, follows the story of a 16-year-old girl who witnesses a police shooting. After this, she struggles with the disparities in her daily life at home and at her largely white private school.
Watch the Movie | Read the Book
