I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

  Yesterday was Juneteenth, our newest official federal holiday.  Juneteenth commemorates the day when slaves in the South learned they had been freed (three years earlier) by the Emancipation Proclamation.  It is a Big Deal but like many things to do with our less than stellar track record on racism, it is more symbolic than representative of actual change.  Which brings us to our movie today.  

James Baldwin was a celebrated author who had been asked to write a book about the deaths of three major Civil Rights figures: Medgar Evars, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The book was never completed but Baldwin's notes were incorporated into this visual essay about his experiences.  Historical footage is juxtaposed with modern corollaries with Baldwin's voice superimposed to provide context and personal musings to the foreground.  It is a very powerful piece and can be hard to watch but it is important that we face our history squarely.

CW:  lynching, dead bodies, racist imagery, white supremacist imagery

It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Netflix, Tubi, and Vudu so there's really no excuse not to watch it.