documentary 
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
4/20/2022
The Unbearable Whiteness of Ken Burns
by Timothy Messer-Kruse
In the context of today's battles over teaching the history of racism in America, the new Franklin documentary unfortunately uses its subject to spin a narrative of national self-correction that ignores historians' attention to conflict and struggle.
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SOURCE: Smithsonian
4/8/2022
New Documentary: Historical Roots of Racial Disparities in American Health Care
"Racism operates in really any environment, and shows up in the hospital. Health care is not immune from the injustices that pervade society more broadly, including racism."
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SOURCE: Washington Post
2/14/2022
New Documentary Highlights Unsolved Civil Rights-Era Murder
Black citizens in Natchez, Mississippi secretly organized for community self-defense in 1965, risking certain reprisals from local whites. Wharlest Jackson was killed by a car bomb in an act of intimidation that was never solved.
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SOURCE: Thirteen
1/21/2022
Jeans: The History of the People's Pants Coming to American Experience
Denim touches the history of American slavery, immigration, industrialization and counterculture. An upcoming "American Experience" feature tells the story.
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SOURCE: Texas Monthly
1/22/2022
New Documentary on 1996 De La Hoya vs. Chavez Fight Digs Into Complexity of Mexican Ethnicity Across the Border
Director Eva Longoria Bastón's documentary on the 1996 match between Mexican champion Julio César Chávez and LA-born Oscar De La Hoya examines how the fight revealed tensions between Mexican and Mexican-American communities expressed in citizenship, language and sports allegiance.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/3/2022
A Film Captures Jewish Life in a Polish Town Before the Nazis Arrived
Glenn Kurtz's discovery of a short reel of film made by his grandfather in 1938 has led to a documentary film exploring the depth of understanding of Jewish life in Poland that can be gleaned from the brief footage.
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SOURCE: Jacobin
11/6/2021
Stanley George on Putting Viewers in the Middle of the Nation's Bloodiest Prison Rebellion
"It’s like the window has been cracked a little bit, so that people who might never have thought to doubt law enforcement are doubting law enforcement now, and they’re thinking about their cruelty and racism in a way they might not have thought about it five years ago."
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
11/7/2021
Pioneering Chicano Movement TV Show Reemerges after 50 Years in Garage
On a recent August day, Frank Cruz, now 82, thought to himself as he had dozens of times before: “Pendejo, you better do something about those films. It might be too late.”
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SOURCE: New York Times
10/12/2021
When the Young Lords Took Over a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care
by Emma Francis-Snyder
"The dramatic takeover of Lincoln Hospital produced one of the first Patient’s Bill of Rights, changing patients’ relationship with hospitals and doctors nationwide."
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/27/2021
Ken Burns's Documentary Shows We Can't Quit Ali
by Jay Caspian Kang
"The odd thing about American sainthood is that we seem to prefer those who, like Ali and Jackie Robinson, did not engage directly in the dirty world of politics, but rather stood as trailblazers or icons in sports or Hollywood."
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SOURCE: Forbes
8/6/2021
Filmmaker Greg Mitchell on the Government's Suppression of Scientists' Film about A-Bombs
"I’ve always wanted to promote an honest debate about what happened. I want all of the facts out there. I want Americans to have conversations and examine moral issues."
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SOURCE: New York Times
8/2/2021
Ken Burns Argues He's not "Taking Up Too Much Space"
The documentarian joins Kara Swisher's "Sway" podcast, focusing on how digital technology is changing the practice of reconstructing the past and whether Burns's films are taking too much airtime as PBS seeks to diversify its stable of producers.
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SOURCE: UChicago News
5/25/2021
The Hidden History Of “Guerrilla Television”: UChicago Scholars Preserve Decades-Old Videos
Technological innovation in the 1960s allowed more people to shoot video and push for community-based television. University of Chicago scholars are working to digitize and preserve "guerrilla television."
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SOURCE: PBS American Experience
2/8/2021
Goin' Back to T-Town
PBS's American Experience is offering online viewing of its 1993 documentary on the Greenwood district of Tulsa and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
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SOURCE: Public Radio Tulsa
5/17/2021
"The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History"
Historian Karlos K. Hill discusses his new book, a compilation of photographs of the Greenwood section of Tulsa before, during, and after the 1921 racist pogrom against the "Black Wall Street."
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SOURCE: Public Books
4/23/2021
Urban Democracy's Documentarian
Frederick Wiseman's documentaries valorize not only the institutions but the labor that makes local government function against the odds.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
3/31/2021
A Black WWII Veteran Was Beaten and Blinded, Fueling Civil Rights Movement
A new documentary examines the attack on Isaac Woodward in 1946, which catalyzed demands for full citizenship and civil rights.
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SOURCE: New York Times
4/2/2021
Review: ‘Hemingway’ Is a Big Two-Hearted Reconsideration
“Can you separate the art from the artist?” is a heated and dogmatic argument these days. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick force the viewer to consider if that separation is possible or desirable.
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/22/2021
Filmmaker’s Suit Says A&E Networks Suppressed ‘Watergate’ Series
A documentarian is suing the A&E cable network claiming it didn't promote his 2018 Watergate series out of deference to Trump voters. The network says the decision was based on ratings and defends its record of airing controversial subjects.
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SOURCE: The New York Times
8/25/2020
‘Soul!’ Brought Black Culture to TV in 1968. A New Doc Tells Its Story.
“Mr. Soul!” spotlights Ellis Haizlip, the host of a show that gave Stevie Wonder, Wilson Pickett and James Baldwin a platform.
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