The Blinding of Isaac Woodard (2021)

2021-03-301h 52m

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.

Related Movies

1137956-thumbnail

To Kill a Mockingbird: All Points of View (2022)

A 60th anniversary retrospective documentary on the influence and context of the 1962 film, To Kill a Mockingbird.

828454-thumbnail

Leigh-Anne: Race, Pop and Power (2021)

Pop star Leigh-Anne Pinnock confronts her experience as the only black member of Little Mix, and as a black woman in the music industry. She embarks on her own very personal journey to understand how she can use her platform and privilege to combat the profound racism she sees in society around her.

1137155-thumbnail

Brief Tender Light (2024)

At America's elite MIT, a Ghanaian alum follows four African students as they strive to graduate and become agents of change for their home countries Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Over an intimate, nearly decade-long journey, all must decide how much of America to absorb, how much of Africa to hold on to, and how to reconcile teenage ideals with the truths they discover about the world and themselves.

977468-thumbnail

I Am One of the People (2022)

Harmful chemicals are disproportionately affecting Black communities in Southern Louisiana along the Mississippi River. I am One of the People is an experimental short film exposing the environmental racism of “Cancer Alley.”

828720-thumbnail

Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street (2021)

This documentary celebrates the Black cultural renaissance that existed in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, OK, and investigates the 100-year-old race massacre that left an indelible, though hidden stain on American history.

818563-thumbnail

Black Eagles (2021)

The documentary Schwarze Adler (Black Eagles) lets black players of the German national football team tell their personal stories for the first time. What road did they take before they got to where we cheer for them? What hurdles did they have to overcome? What prejudices and racist hostility were they exposed to – and what was it like in the past, what is it like today?

1126847-thumbnail

Who We Become (2023)

Kapwa, a Filipino term that means "togetherness" or "neighbor", is a recognition of a shared identity; an inner self that is shared with others. WHO WE BECOME is a story of kapwa and follows three Filipino women each coming into their political consciousness and discovering themselves during a pivotal moment in their lives.

213270-thumbnail

Dark Girls (2011)

Documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color---particularly dark-skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture.

520754-thumbnail

The Australian Dream (2019)

AFL legend Adam Goodes shares the story of his life and career to offer a deeper insight into race, identity, and belonging.

520762-thumbnail

The Final Quarter (2019)

Australian documentary filmmaker Ian Darling re-examines the incidents that marked the final 3 years of Indigenous footballer Adam Goodes' playing career. Made entirely from archival footage, photos and interviews sourced from television, radio and newspapers, the film reviews the national conversation that took place over this period.

974470-thumbnail

General Hercules (2022)

In June 1893, European prospectors unlawfully took claim to ‘The Golden Mile’ on Aboriginal land. In little over a hundred years the natural landscape has been transformed into the industrial hellscape of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. As incumbent Mayor John Bowler starts to campaign for a second term, independent prospector John ‘General Hercules’ Katahanas decides to run against him on an anti-corruption ticket. What starts out as a quirky David-vs-Goliath political battle, unravels into a portrait of a man, a town and a country sent mad by the timeless cycles of exploitation, racism and greed.

520143-thumbnail

Queens of Jazz: The Joy and Pain of the Jazz Divas (2013)

The documentary tracks the diva's difficult progress as she emerges from the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of the big bands of the 30s and 40s, to fill nightclubs and saloons across the US in the 50s and early 60s as a force in her own right. Looking at the lives and careers of six individual singers (Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Annie Ross), the film not only talks to those who knew and worked with these queens of jazz, but also to contemporary singers who sit on the shoulders of these trailblazing talents without having to endure the pain and hardship it took for them to make their highly individual voices heard above the prejudice of mid-century America.

371961-thumbnail

Boy 23: The Forgotten Boys of Brazil (2016)

The film accompanies the investigation of the historian Sidney Aguilar after the discovery of bricks marked with Nazi swastikas in the interior of São Paulo. They then discover a horrifying fact that during the 1930s, fifty black and mullato boys were taken from an orphanage in Rio de Janeiro to the farm where the bricks were found. There they were identified by numbers and were submitted to slave labour by a family that was part of the political and economic elite of the country and who did not hide their Nazi sympathizing ideals.

1416932-thumbnail

in retrospect (2025)

Immigrant workers build a shopping mall for the upcoming 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 2016, nine people with migrant backgrounds are killed in a racist attack at the same mall.

1108862-thumbnail

Safe Place (2024)

A Southern Indiana man endures a fatal night of torture after being arrested for a routine traffic stop.

972549-thumbnail

Tan France: Beauty and the Bleach (2022)

When he was only 9-years-old Tan France tried to lighten his own skin with bleaching cream. He faces up to his own experiences in an attempt to explore perceptions of beauty, skin tone and colourism.

369366-thumbnail

Last Day of Freedom (2015)

When Bill Babbitt realizes his brother Manny has committed a crime he agonizes over his decision to call the police.

1123968-thumbnail

Lost in the In-Between: Graduating into 2020 (2023)

2020 graduates from the University of Iowa chronicle their first year in “the real world”; a world which suddenly looks much different than ever before.

816591-thumbnail

Patriot for life (2010)

Documentary film about the nationalist movement in Sweden

370968-thumbnail

Wilmington on Fire (2015)

A historical and present day look at the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 and how the descendants of the victims of the event are asking for legal action in regards to compensation.