The New Jim Crow Library Guide: Feature Films

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler makes his feature directorial debut with this drama centered on the tragic shooting of Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a vibrant 22-year-old Bay Area father who was senselessly gunned down by BART officers on New Year's Day in 2009, and whose murder sent shockwaves through the nation after being captured on camera by his fellow passengers.

Devoted wife Ruby drops out of medical school after her husband Derek receives an eight-year prison sentence, and struggles to find the courage to remain faithful and supportive as the demands of being a prison wife weigh heavily on her shoulders.

A car accident brings together a group of strangers in Los Angeles. Crash takes a provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial tolerance in contemporary America.

Based on the shocking true story, Miss Evers' Boys exposes a 40-year government backed medical research effort on humans which led to tragic consequences. It is 1932 when loyal, devoted Nurse Eunice Evers (Alfre Woodard) is invited to work with Dr. Brodus (Joe Morton) and Dr. Douglas (Craig Sheffer) on a federally funded program to treat syphilis patients in Alabama. Free treatment is offered to those who test positive for the disease included Caleb Humphries (Laurence Fishburne) and Willie Johnson (Obba Babatunde).

The Butler tells the story of a White House butler who served eight American presidents over three decades. The film traces the dramatic changes that swept American society during this time, from the civil rights movement to Vietnam and beyond, and how those changes affected this man’s life and family.

Selma chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Director Ava DuVernay’s Selma tells the real story of the revered leader and visionary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his brothers and sisters in the movement that prompted change that forever altered history.

When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, the Reverend Martin Luther King was but a modest young Baptist minister suddenly thrust into the leadership of local bus boycott. What started as a one-day protest of unfair bus laws turned into the 381-day boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement. This riveting, rousing made-for-cable drama meticulously recounts the challenges the protest faced.

Many people believe Rosa Parks' simple refusal to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus was her contribution to the Civil Rights Movement, but this engrossing look at her life tells the whole story. At a young age, she refused to recognize her alleged inferiority to whites and became an activist working for the NAACP.

Melvin B. Tolson is a professor at Wiley College in Texas. Wiley is a small African-American college. In 1935, Tolson inspired students to form the school's first debate team. Tolson turns a group of underdog students into a historically elite debate team which goes on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. Inspired by a true story.