Educate Yourself On Racial Injustice with These Movies

Like all forms of art, filmmaking moves us on a deep level. When we’ve felt something shift in us by the time the credits roll, we know we’ve encountered a truth that’s changed us. Powerful movies do more than transport our imaginations, they transform us by calling on us to look at our lives differently.

While the crisis of racial injustice in this country has reached a public boiling point, change begins at a personal level. And storytelling can play a significant role in pushing us toward that. Movies introduce us to new people, struggles, and situations. They help us stand in other people’s shoes and imagine life from a different perspective. They can put a human face on this struggle for freedom and justice.

Watching the films listed below is a place to start. This list contains stories about what it means to live in a racist society — they demonstrate in a visceral way what it is to be a person of color in America. This is by no means a complete list, but it provides a glimpse into the kind of stories that can guide us.

Get Out

Find it on Amazon Prime

Burden

Find it on Hulu

BlacKkKlansman

Find it on Hulu or HBOGo

American History X

Find it on YouTube or Amazon Prime

12 Years a Slave

Find it on YouTube or Amazon Prime

42

Find it on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Detroit

Find it on Hulu

13th

Find it on Netflix

Just Mercy

Find it on Amazon Prime

Tangerine

Find it on Amazon Prime

Watchmen

Find it on HBO

Paris is Burning

Find it on YouTube

Clemency

Find it on Hulu and Amazon Prime

Do the Right Thing

Find it on YouTube and Amazon Prime

I Am Not Your Negro

Find it on YouTube and Amazon Prime

Moonlight

Find it on Netflix

American Son

Find it on Netflix

The Hurricane

Find it on Hulu or YouTube

Fruitvale Station

Find it on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Fences

Find it on YouTube or Amazon Prime

The Hate U Give

Find it on Hulu or YouTube