28 Films for the 28 Days of Black History Month

The 5th Annual Edition of this Black Film Celebration!

Black Film Archive is a living register of Black films streaming from 1898 to 1999. This Substack is its blog. Thank you for being here. This email may be too long for your inbox, please click the headline to read the whole post.

If we’ve ever had an extended conversation before, you would know I often find myself thinking of children’s programming across mediums. Programming for children, as I often express, requires us to think of the agency and personhood of the youngest members of our community. Children are demanding and can sniff out when something is phony. They are eager for rich knowledge, deeply hearted, and sensitive to the ways of the world’s truths and falsehoods. In my estimation, good media for children and adults, doesn’t belittle the audience for what they have yet to reckon with.

This year, as the world continues to shift beneath our feet, I am thinking of the birth and rebirth of life. The desperate and hopeful commitments we make to the world and to each other, the everlasting belief that we can stand tall in the face of tyranny and the ways that belief, that courage, is a birthright.

As James Baldwin writes in “The Fire Next Time:” “Long before the Negro child perceives this difference, and even longer before he understands it, he has begun to react to it, he has begun to be controlled by it. Every effort made by the child's elders to prepare him for a fate from which they cannot protect him causes him secretly, in terror, to begin to await, without knowing that he is doing so, his mysterious and inexorable punishment. He must be "good", not only to please his parents and not only to avoid being punished by them; behind their authority stands another, nameless and impersonal, infinitely harder to please, and bottomlessly cruel.”

The question on my mind is: How we will wage against the fire this time? I write this as a new Angeleno and Katrina survivor who knows we are all moments away from being a climate refuge.¹ I do not pretend to speak with certainty unearned or in a way to minimize the terrors but in all circumstances, I am reminded that what’s true is what always has been: care and hope can transform destruction into unending possibility. I am also reminded that in moments of tyranny, our imagination for tomorrow, for better, for Black futures is the first thing to be seized.

The films on this year's list are in conversation with the dreams planted at birth to remind us that the only way to build a better Black tomorrow is to imagine it. Art is here to be a guide to construct new modes of understanding, communicating, and believing. In this moment of collective reckoning, Black cinematic history remains a prism of possibility that reflects the times and illuminates the possibilities of our beings. We can conceive of a world outside of the constraints placed upon us.

This guide contains 28 selections from Black Film Archive. You will find visions of resistance, childlike wonder, and unending imagination. We will survive the fire this time and the next, and the time after that. These films are simply a place to start or rediscover gems, to find yourself in or retreat to. I hope this Black History Month greets you with peace, joy, and an abundance of great cinema. You can find the complete list and full descriptions on Black Film Archive here. View the list on Letterboxd here. Please enjoy.

To Be Young, Gifted and Black (1972) dir. Michael Shultz

It is natural to ask oneself ‘how have extraordinary people become so? What gave them the courage to face the unending terrain? How can we possess that courage?’ In the film, the players (including the luminous Ruby Dee) are putting on a production chronicling the life of Lorraine Hansberry. The play, which is a collection of Hansberry’s unpublished writing, remains a tribute to the power of artistic spirit and the ways it transforms all who see it. The Nina Simone song of the same name was inspired by the work.

One Way or Another / De cierta manera(1974) dir. Sara Gomez

What happens after the revolution comes? How will we love? What will we seek? Gomez’s hybrid masterwork taking place in the aftermath of post-Revolutionary sings as it seeks these questions among its Afro-Cuban leads and the continued work within us all to find the answers within ourselves.

Whitewash (1994) dir. Michael Sporn

Based on the Ntozake Shange children’s book of the same name, “Whitewash” centers a young Black girl who’s life is turned upside down when her face is sprayed white by racist schoolmates. She learns the courage many Black children must possess to carry on.

There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace: Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues (1981) dir. Craig Davidson

With legends of the game giving firsthand accounts, “There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace” offers a look into the courage of the players and the legacy of triumph under forced segregation.

Freeman (1977) dir. Llyod Richards

Can we be all that we seek? That is the question at the heart of the drama directed by the great Lloyd Richards centering the calamity of ambition and being misunderstood.

The Final Insult (1997) dir. Charles Burnett

With his tender hand at the helm, Burnett masterfully blends truth and fiction to lay bare the daily cruelties of the unhoused population in Los Angeles; those crushed by a system never meant to protect them. With Burnett’s signature poetry, this portrait is sensitive and dynamic.

Cosmic Slop (1994) dir. Reginald Hudlin

With an angry dynamism, Hudlin offers a vision of aliens who demand America hands off their Black people to outer space so they may meet a new reality.

Sisters in the Struggle (1991) dirs. Dionne Brand & Ginny Strikeman

Black women across the political struggle share their insights and truths in this Canadian featurette from brilliant writer Dionne Brand and her co-director. The film serves as a reminder that there is a current of the changing same across history, we can learn from the intellectual maps illustrated here.

Woodcutters of the Deep South (1973) dir. Lionel Rogosin

Through the lushness of the South’s backwoods, Black and white workers lay down arms to come together on a compromise that makes clear their enemy is not their coworker but the forces of capital that keep them at odds.

Just an Overnight Guest (1983) dir. Gina Blumenfeld

After a young girl is abandoned, a family (with parents played by Rosalind Cash and Richard Roundtree) find a way to take her in as they all expand their definitions of family, care, and commitment.

Cornbread, Earl, and Me (1975) dir. Joseph Manduke

When a young member of the neighborhood is tragically slain by police, a community tries to find a way to come together and work through the political and emotional terrain left in the wake of the death. With the screen debut of Laurence Fishburne, this tender portrait has been beloved by Black families across time.

Gay Black Group (1983)

A meeting space is as much a place to gather as it is an opprotunity to confront truths about the world. The formation of the Gay Black Group in the London bookshop Gay’s the World, provided a place for gay Black communities in 1980s to be. The film features a young Isaac Julien.

Voguing: The Message (1989) dirs. David Bronstein, Dorothy Low, Jack Walworth

Traces the history of voguing from its Black queer roots to its emerging national presence.

Brick by Brick (1982) dir. Shirikiana Aina

A searing, tender portrait of the ever-gentrifying Washington, D.C. and those who must pay the ultimate costs for change: the long time Black residents of the Chocolate city.

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (1978) dir. Jack Smight

Claudia McNeil, Janet MacLachlan, and Morgan Freeman star in this tender, beloved coming of age tale centering on a girl and her family’s plight during the aftermath of the Great Depression.

Cracks (1975)

In this short from “Sesame Street,” the beloved children’s program created for inner city Black youth, a Black child uses their imagination to think of a world beyond the crack in their walls.

Paul Robeson: Here I Stand (1999) dir. St. Clair Bourne

“Get them to sing your song and they will want to know who you are.” In this tender film we see the portrait of an artist and the sacrifice and love one must be prepared for in order to maintain being one.

Top of the Heap (1972) dir. Christopher St. John

A hero to none and searching for respect from all, Black policeman George Lattimer raises hell when he’s overlooked for a promotion within the police force. Coming to grips with the depths of institutional racism and the sociopolitical violence of being a cop, George begins to imagine more for himself and the world.

O Happy Day: The Early Days of Black Gay Liberation (1996) dir. Charles Lofton

Using an imaginative approach to storytelling, “O Happy Day” explores the real connections to 1960s queer liberation movements and the Civil Rights Movement.

To Dance with Olivia (1997) dir. Bruce Pittman

How do we carry on in face of tragedy? In “To Dance with Olivia” a husband and wife seek the answers as the husband’s work unearths untended to wounds.

Modern Times: The Way of All Flesh (1997) dir. Adam Curtis

What happens when a Black woman’s DNA is believed to be the secret of how to conquer death? You may know the story of Henrietta Lacks but this documentary interviews those who made the decisions and investigates the unending cost of eugenics, white supremic thought, and lack of healthcare justice.

The Case of the Elevator Duck (1972) dir. Joan Micklin Silver

In this quirky and cute tale, a young boy in a city apartment building discovers a duck and allows his curiosity and skills to guide him to the duck’s owner.

Blind Faith (1998) dir. Ernest Dickerson

When a young Black boy is accused of straggling a white boy to death, his uncle (Courtney B. Vance) takes his case as the family must rally to figure out the truth and save the boy’s life. With Lonette McKee, Kadeem Hardison, and Charles S. Dutton.

A Day in the Life of Willie Faust, or Death on the Installment Plan (1972) dir. Jamaa Fanaka

Playing with and against the expecations of the era’s Blaxploitaitons, Jamaa Fanaka’s student film is an explosion of form, visual texture, and storytelling.

The Magnificent Major (1977) dir. Nick De Noia

In a dystopian alternate reality when reading is banned, a young girl (Tisha Campbell) discovers the importance of knowledge and reading.

Bone (1972) dir. Larry Cohen

When Bone (the always brilliant Yaphet Kotto) breaks into the home of a wealthy, white Beverly Hills couple, the trio goes on an unexpected exploration of class and circumstance.

A Change of Mind (1969) dir. Robert Stevens

Post the United States’ Civil Rights movement, there were a rush of films assessing the future of Blackness in America. “A Change of Mind” ventures into a new territory by centering a Black man who undergoes an operation to have a wealthy white man’s brain implanted into him.

Baldwin’s Nigger (1968) dir. Horace Ove

"White men lynched Negroes, knowing them to be their sons. White women watched men being lynched, knowing them to be their lovers,“ Baldwin exclaims during a lecture that sets the scene for this documentary’s wide-ranging exploration of race and racism. With Dick Gregory.

All films can be seen on Black Film Archive here.

1. A few days after my last note I moved to Los Angeles. Transitions are difficult, endless, and beautiful. They require to confront yourself and the world several times over… and adjust to unending new realities. I am so grateful to be here, however. Also thanks to the care for everyone who checked in after the fires. I am grateful for that, as well!