Black History Month at the BFC/A

This month, the BFC/A will mark and celebrate Black History Month with a series of documentary screenings co-sponsored by the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, the Department of History, and the Black Law Students Association.  The documentaries–all from the collections of California Newsreel–narrate several black labor struggles and the foundations of modern black journalism.

These will be screened each Wednesday in February at 7PM at the BFC/A in Wells Library, Room 044B.   They are:

• A Philip Randolph: for Jobs and Freedom;
• At the River I Stand;
• The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords;
• Struggles in Steel

*A full schedule of events, including assorted accolades and praises, is available here.  The links above are for the trailers for each documentary.

The choice to feature four films from California Newsreel is a tribute to the non-profit social documentary film center, founded in 1968, which has helped to produce and distribute a wide range of social justice documentaries with a particular focus on the African American experience (see Race: The Power of Illusion, Strange Fruit, Freedom on My Mind, etc).

In addition to these onsite events at Indiana University, BFC/A will collaborate with several other organizations to host additional local screenings in Bloomington:

• Ivy Tech Community College will screen Struggles in Steel on February 6^th at the Hoosier-Times Student Commons at 12:30PM.
• The Delta Nu chapter of Delta Sigma Theta will screen This is the Life–Ava DuVernay’s 2008 documentary on LA’s Good Life scene (see the trailer below)–at Monroe County Public Library on Sunday, February 10, at 3PM.