DVD Collection

Based on an incredible true story of one man's fight for survival and freedom. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty (personified by a malevolent slave owner), as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon's chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life. Originally released as a motion picture in 2013.
Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Solomon Northup (based on his memoir 12 Years a Slave), John Ridley (screenplay)
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt

Based on a true story, the movie chronicles the 1839 journey of a group of enslaved Africans who overtake their captor's ship and attempt to return to their beloved homeland. When the ship, La Amistad, is seized, these captives are brought to the United States where they are charged with murder and await their fate in prison. Much of the story involves the court-room drama about the slave who led the revolt. Originally released as a motion picture in 1997.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Franzoni
Cast: Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, Stellan Skarsgård.

When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was but a modest young Baptist minister suddenly thrust into the leadership of local bus boycott. What started as a one-day protest of unfair bus laws turned into the 381-day boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement. This riveting made-for-cable drama meticulously recounts the challenges the protest faced. Jeffrey Wright is excellent as King, capturing his charisma and rousing speeches while grounding his heroism in human vulnerability and fear, but Boycott reminds us that he was only one of the thousands of ordinary people roused into extraordinary action in the name of equality and social justice. That portrait of everyday heroes changing the course of history remains the film's most rousing message. Originally broadcast on HBO in 2001.
Director: Clark Johnson
Writers: Stewart Burns, Herman Daniel Farrell, and Timothy J. Sexton
Cast: Jeffrey Wright, Terrence Howard, CCH Pounder, Carmen Ejogo

This documentary examines the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek a presidential nomination. Following Chisholm from her candidacy announcement through her historic speech in Miami at the Democratic National Convention, this film about a champion of marginalized Americans illuminates Chisholm’s groundbreaking initiative as well as political and social currents still very much alive today.
Director: Shola Lynch

An all-powerful press magnate, Kane, dies in his fabulous castle Xanadu, his last word being "Rosebud", which leads a reporter to seek the meaning behind the word and find the meaning of Kane. Prominent publisher, William Randolph Hearst, saw the film as a thinly disguised version of his career and attempted to suppress it. Citizen Kane originally produced as a motion picture in 1941 ; The battle over Citizen Kane originally produced for television broadcast in 1996 by WGBH Educational Foundation.
Disc 1. Citizen Kane
Disc 2. The battle over Citizen Kane
Director: Orson Welles
Writers: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris.

During his extraordinary life, Cruz Reynoso has been one of those rare individuals who are not only shaped by history, they make history. As a child of farm workers, Reynoso felt the sting of injustice, and later as a lawyer, and then the first Latino to sit on the California Supreme Court, he used his "justice bone" to eradicate discrimination and inequality in an effort to make the promise of the American dream a reality for all. Cruz Reynoso: A Man for All Seasons is a compelling portrait of one of America's unsung heroes and the turbulent times in which he lived.
Director: Abby Ginzberg

Erin Brockovich is a feisty young mother who convinces attorney Ed Masry to hire her and promptly stumbles upon a monumental law case against a giant corporation. Erin's determined to take on this powerful adversary even though no law firm has dared to do it before. The two begin an incredible and sometimes hilarious fight that will bring a small town to its feet and a huge company to its knees. Originally released as a motion picture in 1999.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Susannah Grant
Cast: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart, Marg Helgenberger, Cherry Jones, Veanne Cox, Conchata Ferrell, Tracey Walter.

In 1886, the United States government mobilized 5,000 men - nearly one-quarter of the entire U.S. Army - to capture Geronimo and his band of 39 followers. For decades, these Apaches had resisted the advance of pioneers and other threats to their traditional way of life, fighting attempts by the federal government to confine them to reservations. This film is a search to separate myth from reality in the tragic collision of two cultures with dramatically different views of the world and of each other. Originally broadcast as an episode of The American Experience in 1998.
Director: Neil Goodwin

Based on the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic American freedom fighter, the movie tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves by way of the Underground Railroad and changed the course of history. In English, French or Spanish dialogue; French or Spanish subtitles.
Director: Kasi Lemmons
Writers: Gregory Allen Howard, Kasi Lemmons
Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom, Jr., Joe Alwyn, Clarke Peters, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Vondie Curtis Hall, Jennifer Nettles, Janelle Monáe.

Documentary that juxtaposes footage of two election campaigns run by West Virginian Democrat Warren McGraw in 1972 and 2004. The film uses the two campaigns to draw a picture of the changes in American politics over the last 30 years.
Director: Wayne Ewing

Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Ford, the "Men Who Built America". Meet the titans who forged the foundation of modern America and created the American Dream. The mini-series shines a spotlight on the influential builders, dreamers and believers whose feats transformed the United States. a nation decaying from the inside after the Civil War, into the greatest economic and technological superpower the world had ever seen. Originally broadcast as a mini-series on the History channel in 2012.
Director: Ruan Magan
Cast: Adam Jonas Segaller, Eric Rolland, Michael Chmiel, Justin Mork

O.J.: Made in America is an essential examination of the rise and fall of Orenthal James Simpson, and the parallels between his incredible story and that of race in America. This critically-acclaimed documentary series reveals how he first became a football star, why America fell in love with him off the field, what happened in the trial for the Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman murders, and finally, why he is now sitting in jail for another crime 20 years later. His is a story that divided America like few things before or since, and it is perhaps the defining cultural tale of twentieth-century America. Originally debuted on television in June 2016.
Director: Ezra Edelman

In 1942, Fred Korematsu was an average 23-year-old California native working as a shipyard welder. But when he refused to obey Executive Order 9006, which sent 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry into internment camps, he became something extraordinary - a civil rights champion. The film brings to life the inspirational story of an ordinary man's courageous actions, and the legal fight for his exoneration, which became a landmark episode in the civil rights struggles of the 20th century. Originally broadcast on the television program POV in July 2001.
Writer/Director: Eric Paul Fournier

The film explores how a small group of people in Madrid laid the groundwork for the incredible feat of catching a dictator 25 years after his rise to power. Crucial to the legal case against Pinochet were the testimonies of victims of the crimes of the his regime. Hundreds of Chileans, relatives of the "disappeared," ex-prisoners who suffered torture and interrogation in secret prisons, traveled to Madrid to testify. The film movingly incorporates their stories and also follows the workings of the British legal system that ensued.
Director: Patricio Guzman

The unforgettable true story chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Originally released as a motion picture in 2015.
Director: Ava DuVernay
Writer: Paul Webb
Cast: David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Giovanni Ribisi, Alessandro Nivola, Tim Roth, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Oprah Winfrey.

Based on the ground-breaking Brown vs. the Board of Education case in 1954; viewers follow a young Thurgood Marshall, the lawyer who argued the racially-charged lawsuit before the Supreme Court. When the black students of Clarendon County, South Carolina are denied their request for a single school bus, a bitter and courageous battle for justice and equality begins. Originally aired as a television mini-series in 1991.
Director: George Stevens, Jr.
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Burt Lancaster, Richard Kiley, Cleavon Little.

Thurgood is the remarkable celebration of the life and legacy of Civil Rights advocate and Supreme Court pioneer Thurgood Marshall, the first African American appointed to the nation's highest judicial bench. The one-man play was filmed in front of a live audience at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C. It originally aired in 2011 on HBO.
Director: Michael Stevens
Writer: George Stevens, Jr.
Actor: Laurence Fishburne