Title

Year

Description

Teaching Indians To Be White

1993

This brief but effective program chronicles the attempts to integrate native children into dominant society through educational means. As one episode in the ambitious six-part series Before Columbus, this program is told entirely from the perspective of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere . It is purposefully expressed as a "one-sided story" - the other side of the Columbus discovery saga not often revealed in textbooks. Suitable for junior high school through general adult audiences, Teaching Indians to Be White provides a new and much-needed perspective on a historically controversial subject.

Securing Equal Opportunity in Higher Education

1997

With recent judicial and legislative decisions weakening the foundation of affirmative action, your institution will face greater challenges in building a culturally diverse community. Beyond Affirmative Action: Securing Equal Opportunity in Higher Education examines how these decisions affect women, minorities, and the well-being of the entire campus population. Alternative ways to foster equal opportunity and cultural vitality on the college campus are explored.

Ghana News Stories

2002

Ghana News Stories offers another fresh way to compare and contrast world cultures. American students report from Ghana , West Africa on everything from traditional customs to modern schools to native wildlife.

RACE the power of an illusion Episode One

2003

Much of the program is devoted to understanding why. We look at several scientific discoveries that illustrate why humans cannot be subdivided into races and how there isn't a single characteristic, trait - or even one gene - that can be used to distinguish all members of one race from all members of another.

RACE the power of an illusion Episode Two

2003

Video traces the origins of the racial idea to the European conquest of the New World and to the American slave system - the first ever where all the slaves shared similar physical traits and a common ancestry. Historian James Horton points out that the enslavement of Africans was opportunistic, not based on beliefs about inferiority: "[Our forebears] found what they considered an endless labor supply. People who could be readily identified and so when they ran away they couldn't melt into the population like Native Americans could. People who knew how to grow tobacco, people who knew how to grow rice. They found the ideal, from their standpoint, the ideal labor source

RACE the power of an illusion Episode Three

2003

The film begins by looking at the massive immigration from eastern and southern Europe early in the 20th century. Italians, Hebrews, Greeks and other ethnics were considered by many to be separate races. Their "whiteness" had to be won. But who was white? The 1790 Naturalization Act had limited naturalized citizenship to "free, white persons." Many new arrivals petitioned the courts to be legally designated white in order to gain citizenship. Armenians, known as "Asiatic Turks," succeeded with the help of anthropologist Franz Boas, who testified on their behalf as an expert scientific witness.

The Multicultural History Of The United States Part 1: Pre-History Through 1699

1998

This program takes us from the earliest settlements of North America through the arrivals of the Vikings, Europeans and Colonial America.

The Multicultural History Of The United States Part 2: 1700 Through 1849

1998

This program takes us from the beginning of America 's search for it's own unique identity in modern political terms through revolution and the growing pains of the world's first truly multi-cultural nation.

The Multicultural History Of The United States Part 3: 1850 Through Present

1998

This program illustrates the stresses and strains of a maturing but divided society through the Civil War, Reconstruction, universal suffrage and the struggle for civil rights, to the growth of a truly multiracial and multiethnic society.

Up Against The Wall

1991

A black teen from a Chicago housing project struggles to find acceptance after he transfers into a suburban high school.

It's Elementary

Talking About Gay Issues In School

1997

It's Elementary takes cameras into classrooms across the U.S. to look at one of today's most controversial issues - whether and how gay issues should be discussed in schools. It features elementary and middle schools where (mainly heterosexual) teachers are challenging the prevailing political climate and its attempt to censor any dialogue in schools about gay people. Rather than focusing on the debate between adults, though, the film takes the point of view of the school children, starting as young as first grade.

Dealing With Diversity In The Classroom

1993

Kenneth J. Doka Ph.D narrates this video explaining how demographic changes have affected education and shifted policy from "melting pot" assimilation to cultural pluralism, this video stresses the importance of understanding and respecting a student's culture. It also discusses how to organize a classroom and curriculum to make students from different backgrounds feel welcome and equal.

Prejudice Answering Children's Questions

1992

In ABC News: President Clinton, Answering Children's Questions, Bill Clinton speaks candidly to kids about his experiences serving his first term as President of the United States . Children want to know about the challenges of foreign policy and the massive presidential responsibility to prevent nuclear war. Anchorman Peter Jennings moderates the question-and-answer session. This program is one in a series conducted by the newsman, who provides children with a forum for asking advanced questions about the complex world.

Free Indeed

1995

Free Indeed is a video drama about racism that challenges white viewers to think about the privileges that come with being white in North America . In the drama four white, middle-class young adults play a card game as a pre-requisite for doing a service project for a black Baptist church. The game leads to a discussion about the privileges white people have.

Race Against Prime Time

1985

Race Against Prime Time documents how local television newsmen anoint black community spokespersons, characterize whites as victims and blacks as rioters and fail to place the disturbances within the context of and decades of civic neglect. This film reminds us that twenty-five years after the Kerner report decried media prejudice, news reporting remains very much a white view of black realities.

Black Athena

1991

Black Athena examines Cornell Professor Martin Bernal's iconoclastic study of the African origins of Greek civilization and the explosive academic debate it provoked. This film offers a balanced, scholarly introduction to the disputes surrounding multiculturalism, "political correctness" and Afrocentric curricula sweeping college campuses today.

The Thirty-Minute Blue Eyed

1996

Now Jane Elliott's critically award winning Blue Eyed is available in a more useful, more concise version concentrating all the drama and insight of the original into an even more powerful 30-minute video. Jane Elliott's “blue eyed-brown eyed exercise” is one or the most acclaimed and most widely used diversity training tool ever developed. It has been covered by numerous television documentaries like CBS' Eye of the Storm as well as appearances on the Today, Tonight, Donahue and Oprah shows.

True Colors

1991

In this startling expose, ABC News Prime Time Live anchor, Diane Sawyer explores skin color prejudice in America with the help of two friends virtually identical in all respects but one-- John is white, Glen is black. Together they take part in a series of hidden camera experiments exploring people's reactions to each in a variety of situations. Acting within the scenario of moving to a new town, Prime Time Live, undercover, follows John and Glen separately as they each try to rent an apartment, respond to job listings, purchase a car, and conduct everyday activities such as shopping. The responses in other the white and racially mixed communities are shocking and consistent. In every instance, John is welcomed into the community while Glen is discouraged by high prices, long waits, and unfriendly salespeople. Diane Sawyer concludes TRUE COLORS with a discussion with John and Glen about the outcome of these experiments and their experiences with discrimination in daily life. A corVISION Media Release Produced by ABC News

Class Dismissed

2005

Based on the forthcoming book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.

Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy.

Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations. The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people.

The Color of Fear

1995

The Color of Fear is an insightful, groundbreaking film about the state of race relations in America as seen through the eyes of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino and African descent. In a series of intelligent, emotional and dramatic confrontations the men reveal the pain and scars that racism has caused them. What emerges is a deeper sense of understanding and trust. This is the dialogue most of us fear, but hope will happen sometime in our lifetime.

The Way Home

1998

Over the course of eight months, sixty-four women representing a cross-section of cultures, (Indigenous, African-American, Arab, Asian, European-American, Jewish, Latina , and Multiracial) came together to share their experience of racism in America .

With uncommon courage, the women speak their hearts and minds about resistance, love, assimilation, standards of beauty, power, school experiences, and more. Their candid conversations offer rare access into multi- dimensional worlds invisible to outsiders. The abundance of photographs, dance, and music provides a sensual richness to this provocative piece.

Connected: Careers For The Future

1997

Connected: Careers for the Future is a unique educational video project aimed at young people of color. It's no secret -- we're living in a world of tremendous flux. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the workplace, where jobs are being transformed at an astounding pace. However, one thing is becoming increasingly apparent -- the best careers are, in one way or another, global. The goal of Connected: Careers for the Future is to increase minority awareness about the variety of international careers as we head into the 21st century.

Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American Identity

, William E. Cross, Jr., presents the diversity and texture that have always been the hallmark of Black psychology. Shades of Black explodes the myth that self-hatred is the dominant theme in Black identity. With a thorough review of social scientific literature on Negro identity conducted between 1936 and 1967, Cross demonstrates that important themes of mental health and adaptive strength have been frequently overlooked by scholars, both Black and White, obsessed with proving Black pathology. He examines the Black Power Movement and critics who credit this era with a comprehensive change in Black self-esteem. Allowing for a considerable gain in group identity among Black people during this period, Cross shows how, before this, working and middle class, and even many poor Black families were able to offer their progeny a legacy of mental health and personal strength that sustained them in their struggles for political and cultural consensus.

From Pyramids to Slave Dungeons, to Liberation

1993

Jawanza Kunjufu gives an overarching view of African history from Egypt to the slave dungeons of West Africa , plotting a course for continuing the African-American liberation.

Last Chance For Eden pt. 2

2002

The continuation of the conversation between nine women and men about racism and sexism. Each of their stories are filled with history, courage and wisdom. For their voices and struggles remind us of how much farther we still need to go.

CIVITAS: Civility in the Classroom

2006

A humorous and lively video designed to help create environments conducive to intellectual discourse, cooperation, and learning. The program objectives are achieved as audience members view the video and engage in discussion.

Ethnic Notions

1987

Emmy-winning documentary movie which pushes viewers to follow the traces of American history, showing the racial stereotypes and myths that have been influencing whites' perception of African-Americans. The documentary is based on several visual images of blacks that shape feelings about race. This movie interweaves mistral shows, advertisements and other types of entertainment to show hideously caricatured blacks with curly hair, big lips and bulging eyes, attending to whites with a great servitude.

The Fairer Sex?

1994

ABC's "Prime Time Live" set out to discover whether there are daily differences in being a male versus a female in today's American society, particularly in the workplace. Julie and Chris, professional testers in their late 20s, helped in the investigation. They posed as two people who had just moved to a major urban area. We follow them as they begin to get established, looking for jobs, shopping for cars, even asking about playing golf. While Chris receives priority treatment in nearly every test situation, Judith is often talked down to + in some cases even ignored. This video will help organizations openly discuss the gender discrimination issue and how it affects performance and motivation in their organizations.

National Geographic: Skin

2002

Witness an ongoing scientific study that shows how skin is important to attraction through chemistry. Follow two photographers—one trying to prove through his photographs that skin is beautiful everywhere, by encouraging people to be rid of their inhibitions; the other traveling the world to document cultures who revere skin through the ancient art of body decoration.

The History Channel: Ku Klux Klan A Secret History

1996

Video ventures back to the days of the Reconstruction South and through the landmarks in Klan history to tell the complete story of the most famous hate group in America. Discover how the six original Klansmen came together and chose their name. See how the release of America 's first blockbuster movie spurred a resurgence in the KKK and how they expanded their target to include Jews, Catholics and immigrants as well as blacks. Examine the tactics of Klan leaders like William Joseph Simmons and David Duke. And, finally, find out how the Klan has repeatedly battled back from the brink of extinction.

Black Panther Films

1967, 1968, 1969

Accompanying the Newsreel films is a massive quantity of rare and exclusive materials culled from Roz Payne's extensive collection of FBI documents, correspondence, and interviews with Black Panthers and their supporters. It's all here, the government-sponsored repression, the trials, exile, triumph, and reunion.

What We Want, What We Believe is not a straight-forward documentary—the additional materials are like Roz Payne's home movies—but more like a tapestry woven from fragments of cloth. As a whole, these fragments present a rich and provocative history, straight from the mouths of Panthers, their supporters, and even the agents charged with neutralizing them.

Integration with Dignity

2003

Clemson University became the first white college or university in the state to integrate on January 28, 1963 . Video shows the story of Clemson University 's peaceful desegregation on January 18, 1963 .

Wrestling with Manhood

2002

Wrestling with Manhood is the first educational program to pay attention to the enormous popularity of professional wrestling among male youth, addressing its relationship to real-life violence and probing the social values that sustain it as a powerful cultural force. Richly illustrating their analysis with numerous examples, Sut Jhally and Jackson Katz - the award-winning creators of the videos Dreamworlds and Tough Guise, respectively - offer a new way to think about the enduring problems of men ' s violence against women and bullying in our schools.

The Myth of the Liberal Media

1997

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the "liberal media." Instead, utilizing a systematic model based on massive empirical research, they reveal the manner in which the news media are so subordinated to corporate and conservative interests that their function can only be described as that of "elite propaganda."

Skin Deep

1995

Skin Deep chronicles the eye-opening journey of a diverse and divided group of college students as they awkwardly but honestly confront each other's racial prejudices.

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Frances Reid follows students from the University of Massachusetts , Texas A&M, Chico State , and U.C. Berkeley to a challenging racial awareness workshop where they confront each other's innermost feelings about race and ethnicity. She also accompanies them back to their campuses and on visits home in an attempt to understand why they think the way they do.

The African American Holiday of Kwanzaa

1995

This is a comprehensive overview of Kwanzaa, including a brief history of the holiday, an explanation of the symbols and principles of Kwanzaa, an interview with the creator of Kwanzaa — Dr. Maulana Karenga, a candle lighting ceremony, and a community Kwanzaa Karamu (feast).

America 's Civil Rights Years:

Eyes On The Prize

Volume 1

Awakenings (1954-1956) and Fighting Back (1957 – 1962)

1987

Episode 1: Awakenings (1954-1956)   Awakenings focuses on the catalytic events of 1954-1956. The Mississippi lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till led to a widely publicized trial where a courageous black man took the stand and accused two white men of murder. In Montgomery , Alabama , Rosa Parks refused to yield her bus seat to a white man and triggered a yearlong boycott that resulted in the desegregation of public buses. Ordinary citizens and local leaders joined the black struggle for freedom. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed. In response, may white southerners closed ranks in opposition to the burgeoning black rights movement. Racial discrimination finally became a political issue.

Episode 2: Fighting Back (1957-1962)   Fighting Back follows the struggle for equality from the schoolroom to the courtroom and back as blacks reject the existing system of “separate but equal” education. In 1954, the Supreme Court also rejects the system with its historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. The legal battle won, in 1957 nine black teenagers dare to integrate Little Rock 's Central High School . In 1962, a resolute James Meredith enrolls at the University of Mississippi . Students, parents, and lawyers unite to guarantee a better education and a better future for their children.

America 's Civil Rights Years:

Eyes On The Prize

Volume 2

Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961) and No Easy Walk (1962-1966)

1987

Episode 3: Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961)   Ain't scared of your jails chronicles the courage displayed by thousands of young people and college students who joined the ranks of the movement and gave it new direction. In 1960, lunch counter sit-ins spread across the South, may organized by the new, energetic Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1961, on the Freedom Rides, many young people faced violence and defied death threats as they labored to obliterate segregation in interstate bus travel below the Mason-Dixon Line . The growing movement toward racial equality influenced the 1960 Presidential campaign; and federal rights versus state's rights became an issue.

Episode 4: No Easy Walk (1962-1966)   No Easy Walk explores a crucial phase in the civil rights movement—the emergence of mass demonstrations and marches as a powerful protest vehicle. In Albany , Georgia , police chief Laurie Pritchett challenged Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s tactics of nonviolent mass demonstration. In Birmingham , Alabama , school children steadfastly marched against the violent spray of fire hoses and were jailed as a result. The triumphant 1963 March on Washington , D.C. captured worldwide attention and garnered broad national support, helping to shift federal policy.

America 's Civil Rights Years:

Eyes On The Prize

Volume 3

Mississippi : Is This America ? (1962-1964) and Bridge to Freedom (1965)

1987

Episode 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 during the 1962-64 voting rights campaign in Mississippi . The state became a testing ground of constitutional principles as civil rights activists concentrated their energies on the right to vote. White resistance to the sharing of political power clashed with the strong determination of movement leaders to bring Mississippi blacks to the ballot box. In Freedom Summer 1964, tension between white resistance and movement activists climaxed in the tragic murder of three young civil rights workers.

Episode 6: Bridge to Freedom (1965)   In Bridge to Freedom, the lessons of a decade are brought to bear in the climactic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, when thousands joined together to march fifty miles for freedom. During the drive to make voting rights a national issue, strategic and ideological differences began to surface between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s SCLC and the younger activists on SNCC. As white “blacklash” and segregationist resistance intensified, President Lyndon B. Johnson promised to further the movement's legislative goals. Then, as the movement began to splinter into factions, the Voting Rights Act became federal law.

America 's Civil Rights Years:

Eyes On The Prize

Volume 4

The Time Has Come (1964-1965) and Two Societies (1965-1968)

1987

Episode 7: The Time Has Come (1964-1965)   During the decade of civil rights protest in the south, a sense of urgency and anger emerged from the black communities in the north. This urgency was best articulated by Malcolm X, then National Minister of the Nation of Islam. Viewers follow the trajectory of Malcolm X's influence, both within the movement and outside. The program shows the influence of his philosophy on the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as they organized the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama and as they issued the call for “Black Power” during the 1966 Meredith March Against Fear in Mississippi .

Episode 8: Two Societies (1965-1968)   Against the backdrop of the long hot summers of the mid-1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference went to Chicago in an attempt to apply southern movement tactics to the urban north. Their strategies were tested as they came up against the powerful political machinery of Mayor Richard Daley. A year later, in Detroit , frustration and anger built to urban violence as blacks and law officers clashed on city streets and America appeared to be a nation out of control.

America 's Civil Rights Years:

Eyes On The Prize

Volume 5

Power! (1967-1968) and The Promised Land (1967-1968)

1987

Episode 9: Power! (1967-1968)   Out of the ashes of the urban rebellions, blacks looked for new ways to take control of their communities; the ballot box, the street and the schools became the dominant platforms. In Cleveland , the black community, together with a segment of white voters, achieved an historic victory: the election of Carl Stokes as the first African American mayor of a major city. In Oakland , young black men and women attempted to confront continuing police harassment by forming the Black Panther Party. In Brooklyn , New York , black and Hispanic parents struggled to improve their children's education through community control of schools. While these efforts had varying degrees of success, they nevertheless resulted in greater empowerment for their communities.

Episode 10: The Promised Land (1967-1968)   In the final year of Martin Luther King's life, the movement turned its attention to the economic issues confronting the nation and the rumblings of a far off war in Vietnam . Moved by the increasing level of poverty, Dr. King and his staff searched for a strategy, in effect, an economic redistribution of wealth. They began to organize a Poor People's Campaign, a march of the poor to Washington , D.C. , where they would erect Resurrection City to embarrass and motivate a reluctant government. In the midst of organizing the campaign, Dr. King was called away to help black sanitation workers on strike in Memphis . On April 4, 1968 , in Memphis , Martin Luther Jr. was assassinated. Though devastated by the loss of their leader, King's staff struggled to continue the campaign. Soon after its construction, Resurrection City was shut down, marking the end of a chapter of the civil rights movement.

America 's Civil Rights Years:

Eyes On The Prize

Volume 6

Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-1972) and A Nation of Law? (1967-1968)

1987

Episode 11: Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-1972)   An awareness and sense of pride emerged through the struggle of World Heavyweight Champion Cassius Clay to be called by his new Islamic name, Muhammad Ali. No longer content to use the mainstream culture as their standard and rejecting images which traditionally stereotyped them as servile and inferior, a new generation of African Americans began to redefine itself. Propelled by the Black Consciousness Movement, they celebrated black values and culture and their African roots. Howard University students demanded a more black-oriented curriculum, and African-Americans of every persuasion met to forge a new unity at the Black Political Convention in Gary , Indiana .

Episode 12: A Nation of Law? (1967-1968)   By the late 1960s, the anger in poorer urban areas over charges of police brutality was smoldering. In Chicago , Fred Hampton formed a Black Panther Party chapter. As the chapter grew, so did police surveillance. In a pre-dawn assault by the police, Panthers Hampton and Mark Clark were killed. The deaths came at a time when movement activists were increasingly becoming targets of police harassment at both the local and federal levels through COUNTELPRO, the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program. During this same period, inmates at New York 's Attica prison took over the prison in an effort to publicize intolerable conditions. During the police assault which ended the takeover, several inmates and guards were killed. For some, Attica came to symbolize the brutality of a hardened political regime.

America 's Civil Rights Years:

Eyes On The Prize

Volume 7

The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-1980) and Episode 14: Back to the Movement (1979-mid 1980s)

1987

Episode 13: The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-1980)   This show examines the relationship between law and popular struggle as it chronicles efforts to inject substance into promises of equality. The movement's focus is on the keys to the kingdom: jobs and education. In Boston , black parents organize to improve their children's education through court-ordered integration; the response of the white community was swift and often violent. In Atlanta , Mayor Maynard Jackson, the city's first black mayor, used the legal remedy of an affirmative action program to guarantee black involvement in the construction of Atlanta 's airport. Affirmative action programs did not go unchallenged, however, as Allan Bakke took his suit against the University of California all the way to the Supreme Court.

Episode 14: Back to the Movement (1979-mid 1980s)   The series concludes with an examination of two cities—one southern, one northern. In Miami , Florida , viewers witness the destruction of Overtown, a once-thriving community, as it was ravaged by urban renewal and the construction of an interstate highway. Politically powerless, the community's economic plight was worsened by the steady arrival of another minority group—Cuban immigrants. In 1980, when white police officers were cleared of charges following the death of a black businessman, Miami 's black community exploded in the largest riot since Detroit , 1967. In the north, frustrated by an unresponsive city administration, black Chicagoans successfully organized for political change through a reform candidate and brought about the election of Harold Washington, Chicago 's first black mayor. The series ends with a look back at the people who made this movement a force for change in America . We listen to those who have worked for justice in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, as they reflect on their on-going struggle. Viewers come to realize how far America has traveled to arrive at this racial crossroads.