Television and film allow us to envision the emotional and psychological pain our people suffered during the Civil Rights Movement. In these four films, you’ll see stories told through the eyes of women and girls in ways that are not only unique but also fully authentic.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974)
This made-for-TV movie stars Cicely Tyson as an ex-slave who lives to see the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement.
Selma, Lord, Selma (1999)
Director Charles Burnett retells the story of an 11-year-old girl (played by Jurnee Smollett), her admiration for Martin Luther King, Jr., and her harrowing experience marching from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.
4 Little Girls (1997)
In this Oscar-and Emmy-nominated documentary, Spike Lee honors the stolen lives of the young girls lost in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Long Walk Home (1990)
The 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott — one of the first protest in the Civil Rights Movement — is the centerpiece of this film about a fictionalized bond between a maid, played by Whoopi Goldberg, and her well-heeled employer (played by Sissy Spacek).