Recommendations for a Black History Month Film Festival

Feel free to disagree with me, but I have always been divided on the concept of "Black History Month". On the one hand, contributions to society by African Americans need to be celebrated, but are often ignored, compared to those of other ethnicities. At the same time though, highlighting these innovations, and the innovators themselves, solely because they are Black only reinforces the idea that they are somehow different from the greater society. I have no solution for this, and that is why it puts me in such a quandary.

However, I like to think of myself as an educator, and social commentator first and foremost, so to that end, I pose the following question: What films would you show if your school was hosting a Black History Month film festival? I based my decisions on the films that had the most impact on me as a young man of color. Feel free to disagree with me. Send me emails of dissent, whatever, but most of all, think of what YOU would show, regardless of your OWN ethnicity. Maybe you can come up with a list for yourself. Maybe we can combine all the lists, and create a "History of all of us" film festival some day! Enough pontificating...here we go, in no particular order:

The Color Purple-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088939/

Steven Spielberg directs a most beautiful, and heart-wrenching film, and Whoopi Goldberg holds the screen in this story of one woman's journey through life. A lot of elements of African- American culture are on display here, and the film shows where a lot of them began. This film is amazing too, because it was overlooked by the Academy. The Oscar went to "Out of Africa" instead. However, this film still resonates, and has become a favorite of many, while that film is dated, and forgotten.

Rosewood-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120036/

John Singleton clumsily directed a film chronicle of an event most Floridians would rather forget, and in fact, many denied for many years. This film is not perfect, and in some spots, downright laughable, but if it fails to move you, then you are dead inside. Dead, I tell you! The fact that it is a true story should make it even more crucial to see.

Glory-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097441/

Ok. I have to get personal here. I saw this movie, by myself, when it came out, and at the end, sat in silence for 5 full minutes. There was no one else in the theater. I went home and told everyone I knew to see it. This was the most amazing film I had ever seen, and I was shocked that it wasn't getting noticed by anyone. This was before social media (or the internet for that matter), or I would have tweeted, Facebooked and blogged until this movie was a hit. Fortunately, Siskel and Ebert did my work for me, because it became a hit and if I remember correctly, won an Oscar. The film still moves me every time I see it. Favorite scene is the one where Matthew Brodericks Col. Shaw tells the men they are fee to leave, rather than serve in the US. Army, then goes to bed. When he awakes, he finds all the men, standing at attention, awaiting orders.

The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071175/

This movie, which was made for television, predates "Roots" by a couple of years, and I believe it tells a more accurate and personal version of the Civil rights struggle. It follows a woman who was born into slavery through her life upto the late 1960s, and also contains an amazing tour de force performance by national treasure Cicely Tyson.

Panther-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114084/

Spike Lee's "Malcolm X' got a lot more press, but I feel this is the better movie. Like Rosewood, it is flawed, but fun. It is not a great film, but I learned a lot about the Black Panther movement from it, and I was proud of their accomplishments afterward. The film did make me go research more about the Panthers, because, like most people, I had the idea that they were thugs and hoodlums, and were somehow involved in criminal activity. I found out the perception of them was very different than the reality.

A Soldier's Story-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088146/

This one is personal too. It is an amazing film, forst of all, but it was the one movie I ever saw my father cry watching. It seems it was very similar to his own experiences as a Black soldier in the 1950s.

Boyz in da Hood- Do I really need to explain this one?

Standing in the Shadows of Motown-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314725/

Because this is a documentary, it is the most important of the films on my list. This chronicles the "Funk Brothers" whose music is the underpinning for many of the worlds most beloved artists, and one of the most copied, sampled and stolen musical sounds ever created, and the fact that most of them died penniless, and the remaining are just starting to get their due 40 years later is heavy. Try not to cry when they mention that James Jamerson was not allowed into the Motown 25th Anniversary celebration because he couldn't afford a ticket.

Malcolm X-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104797/

This is an extremely important film, and still the biggest of Spike Lee's career. Like many of the other films I mention here, it is flawed, but I include it here because of the impact it had on me. Lee clearly took the material seriously, and handled it with respect and admiration. Denzel gives what may have been his finest performance, and this movie has the gravitas of "Lion in Winter", or "Lawrence of Arabia", which is what Spike Lee was going for. Again, try not to be moved by the assassination scene.

Those are the films I would show, if I were hosting a Black History month Film Festival. Honorable mentions go to "Dreamgirls", "Precious (Only because I have not seen it), and "Hollywood Shuffle", because the comedy is so broad, the point gets a little lost. What do you think?