Protest: Movies for Families About Working for Justice and Progress

Posted on June 2, 2020 at 10:41 am

The news of 2020 may be confusing and scary for children. These movies will help families talk about how democracies allow ordinary citizens to work for change.

Selma: “Selma,” director Ava DuVernay’s film about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the march from Selma, Alabama to the state capital at Montgomery, to make the case for the right to vote, is superb as biography, as history, and as drama.

He Named Me Malala: She risked everything to be allowed to learn. And now she is a world leader in advocating for other girls to have the same chance.

How to Survive a Plague: Extraordinary archival footage of the early days of AIDS activism makes this documentary especially vital and compelling. As writer/director David France told me, ““This isn’t a movie about what AIDS did to us. This is a movie about what we did to AIDS.” the people in this movie changed the way the medical and research communities interact with patients and their families who are coping with all diseases and conditions.

Boycott: The Montgomery bus boycott led by a young clergyman named Martin Luther King, Jr. changed the world.

It is humbling to remember that the boycotters never demanded complete desegregation of the public transit; that seemed too unrealistic a goal. This website has video interviews with the people who were there. This newspaper article describes Dr. King’s meeting with the bus line officials. And excellent teaching materials about the Montgomery bus boycott are available, including the modest and deeply moving reminder to the boycotters once segregation had been ruled unconstitutional that they should “demonstrate calm dignity,” “pray for guidance,” and refrain from boasting or bragging.

Mission Blue: World-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle travels the globe on an urgent mission to shed light on the dire condition of Earth’s oceans.

Dolores: One of the most powerful activists on behalf of migrant workers is Dolores Huerta, who had to fight sexism as well as racism.

Amazing Grace: The first ever citizen-led movement leading to peaceful social change was the British anti-slavery movement led by William Wilberforce, movingly depicted in this film. You can see the origins of the kinds of tactics and arguments that have formed the basis for every social movement since.

Made in Dagenham: Sally Hawkins stars in this fact-based story about women fighting for equal pay at a car company. It is a stirring and inspirational story and has a nuanced look at the political challenges as well as the professional ones.

1971: Before the Pentagon Papers, Edward Snowden, the Panama Papers, Wikileaks, and Chelsea Manning there was the first-ever leak of government documents. A group of activists broke into an FBI office and released documents showing abuse by law enforcement in a program called COINTELPRO. It was decades before anyone discovered who was responsible and we are just beginning to understand the impact of these revelations in loss of trust for government and changes of policy in the press.

Mighty Times: The Children’s March: This Oscar-winning documentary is the story of how the young people of Birmingham, Alabama, braved fire hoses and police dogs in 1963 to demand justice.

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Tribute: Pete Seeger

Posted on January 28, 2014 at 8:31 am

We bid a sad farewell to activist/musician Pete Seeger today. He has died at age 94. His songs provided the soundtrack for protest movements over decades, pushing for peace, justice, protection of the environment, equality, and economic opportunity. His songs have been sung and recorded by Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, and hundreds of others, including “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” and “If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song).” He also popularized the songs of legendary performers like Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” and the folk songs of nameless working people who shared their stories and their sorrows in music. Our family used to listen to his albums like Children’s Concert At Town Hall, Folk Songs for Young People and Birds, Beasts, Bugs & Fishes Little & Big: Animal Folk Songs when we drove to school. He was always ready to lend a hand, a voice, and a song to the cause of justice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5G4YPNGnVE

NPR paid tribute to Seeger on his 90th birthday with an outstanding appreciation that is well worth a listen. You can find out more about Seeger’s life, music, and work here, which includes this wonderful exchange from an interview.

AMY GOODMAN: And for someone who isn’t so hopeful, who is listening to this right now, trying to find their way, what would you say?

PETE SEEGER: Realize that little things lead to bigger things. That’s what Seeds is all about. And this wonderful parable in the New Testament: the sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don’t grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don’t grow. But some seeds fall on fallow ground, and they grow and multiply a thousand fold. Who knows where some good little thing that you’ve done may bring results years later that you never dreamed of?

May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration and may his songs be sung forever.

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Blind Activists Protest “Blindness”

Posted on October 2, 2008 at 10:12 pm

“Blindness” is the story of unnamed characters in an unnamed community who all suddenly lose their sight with just one exception, a doctor’s wife played by Julianne Moore. The newly blind citizens, along with Moore’s character, who pretends to be blind, are quarantined and quickly confront a series of tragic choices and heart-wrenching moral compromises and violations as they struggle to survive. The movie, like the novel that inspired it, is an allegory along the lines of “Lord of the Flies” or “28 Days Later.”
The National Federation of the Blind has criticized the film, saying that it portrays blind people as monsters. That is not true; it portrays human beings as monsters, or at least as animals who cast off the thin veneer of civilization when their infrastructure and external controls were removed. They also say it perpetuates inaccurate stereotypes, portraying the blind as unable to care for themselves and navigate. Again, that is not true. It portrays people who suddenly become blind and have no support services or training as having a very difficult adjustment. Indeed, there is one character who was blind before the epidemic, and the movie makes it clear that he does have the skills to use a cane and a braille machine.
Once again, misplaced activism attacks the most superficial details of a movie without taking time to understand that it is on their side.

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