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Diversity Initiatives

A Different Mirror
A History of Multicultural America
By: Ronald Takaki
*Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California-Berkeley

Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company, New York
Copyright: 1995
Pages: 508

A Race is a Nice Thing to Have
A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life
By: Janet E. Helms, Ph.D.
*Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland-College Park
*President, Cultural Communications (race relations and psychological consultation firm)

Publisher: Content Communications, Topeka, KS
Copyright: 1992
Pages: 98

Faces at the Bottom of the Well
The Permanence of Racism
By: Derrick Bell
*Visiting Professor of Law, New York University Law School
*Weld Professor of Law, Harvard University (was dismissed for refusing to end his 2-year leave protesting the absence of minority women on the law faculty)

Publisher: Basic Books, New York
Copyright: 1992
Pages: 214

Lies My Teacher Told Me
Everything Your American History Book Got Wrong
By: James W. Coewen
*Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York
Copyright: 1995
Pages: 383

Living With Racism
The Black Middle Class Experience
By: Joe R. Feagin
*Graduate Research professor of Sociology, University of Florida
Melvin P. Sikes
*Educator and Psychological Consultant
Publisher: Beacon Press, Boston
Copyright: 1994
Pages: 398

Race, Class, and Gender in the United States
An Integrated Study
By:Paula S. Rothenberg
*Director, New Jersey Project on Inclusive Scholarship, Curriculum, and Teaching
*Professor, William Paterson University of New Jersey

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, New York
Copyright: 1998
Pages: 604

Two Nations
Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (Expanded and Updated)
By: Andrew Hacker
*Professor of Political Science, Queens College of New York City

Publisher: Ballentine Books, New York
Copyright: 1992
Pages: 283

VIDEOS

America’s Civil Rights Years
Eyes on the Prize
Volume I-Awakenings (1954-1956): Emmett Till…Rosa Parks…Martin Luther King, Jr. In Mississippi, one courageous Black man stands up for racial injustice. In Montgomery, Mrs. Parks and a young Rev. King and other ministers form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Ordinary people play extraordinary roles in the burgeoning movement for civil and human rights.
Fighting Back (1957-1962): Little Rock…”Ole Miss”…The 1954 Supreme Court Decision. In the schools of the south battle lines are drawn with unforgettable images. In Little Rock, as black teenagers dare to integrate Central High School, aided by US paratroopers, in Mississippi, James Meredith and NAACP lawyers face mob violence integrating the University of Mississippi. From the schoolhouse to the Whitehouse, the confrontation between states and federal governments escalates (120 minutes).
Volume II-Ain’t Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961): Sit-ins…SNCC…Freedom Rides…CORE. Thousands of young people join in the ranks of the movement, giving it new direction. Students across the south organize lunch counter sit-ins and nationwide boycotts, and form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Students and veteran activists are attacked on the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of Racial Equality to end bus segregation below the Mason-Dixon Line. In 1960, President Kennedy’s election is aided by strong black support.

No Easy Walk (1961-1963): Georgia…Alabama…the March on Washington. Mass demonstrations become a powerful protest vehicle. In Albany, GA, a police chief wages a sophisticated challenge to Rev. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent tactic. In Birmingham, children march and are met by violent fire hoses and snarling dogs. At the University of Alabama, Gov. Wallace challenges President Kennedy over school integration. The triumphant March on Washington brings together 250,000 people, capturing worldwide attention and helping to shift federal policy (120 minutes).

Volume III-Mississippi: Is this America? (1962-1964): Freedom Summer…Assassinations…Medgar Evers. Mississippi becomes a testing ground of constitutional principles as civil rights activists focus their energies on the right to vote. In 1963, NAACP leader Medgar Evers is silenced by an assassin’s bullet. In Freedom Summer 1964, tensions between white resistance and movement activists climax in the murder of three young civil rights workers. Amidst the horror, the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 is passed and the seeds of political change are planted.

Bridge to Freedom (1965): Selma…Montgomery…The Voting Rights Act. National television is by now a major player in the struggle for civil rights. In the spring of 1965, a young civil rights activist is shot and the nation is horrified by TV images of troopers gassing demonstrators on a Selma bridge. From across the nation, 25,000 people amass to make the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, helping to ensure the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (120 minutes).

Volume IV-The Time Has Come (1964-1966): In the South and the urban North, leaders emerged who helped transform the civil rights movement into a broader struggle for human rights. Their message was direct: “the Time Has Come.” This urgency was best articulated by Malcolm X, who exhorted African Americans to build a base of power founded on self-respect, self-reliance, and independent Black institutions. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) responded to Malcolm’s call by launching an independent political party in Alabama, using the symbol of a black panther to counter the existing Democratic Party’s white rooster. Malcolm X’s influence also reverberated in the call for “Black Power,” raised by SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael during a march through Mississippi.

Two Societies (1965-1968): “Two Societies” reveals the divisions that existed between African Americans and Whites in America’s cities, where African Americans had gained little from the southern freedom movement by the late 60’s. In Chicago, one of the most segregated cities in the country, we see the southern civil rights movement’s attempt to bring the nonviolent movement north. Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led protest marches through white suburbs, where its non-violent methods were sorely testes. In Detroit, tensions exploded during the summer of ’67, and more than 100 cities shared the pain of racial violence. A presidential commission warned that America had become “two societies, separate and unequal” (120 minutes).

Volume V-Power! (1966-1968): Solutions to the problems of inequality were as diverse as America itself. Communities mobilized for change in strikingly different ways, but their ultimate goal was the same – power. In Cleveland, Ohio, Carl Stokes sought power through the ballot box, and became the first Black mayor of a major city. In the streets of Oakland, California, where tensions were high between the community and the police, activists formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to advocate community empowerment and social programs, and to monitor the police. And in Brooklyn, NY African American and Latino residents elected an interracial governing board to control their children’s education. Their two-year experiment was buffeted by teacher strikes and battles for power, but out of the struggle came an organized community of parent-activists.

The Promised Land (1967-1968): The escalating Vietnam War further divided America, and the government’s War on Poverty began to suffer. Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) joined others in the movement seeking to expand the struggle for civil rights to include economic equality. SCLC organized a multiracial Poor People’s March to Washington, D.C. to force government response. They also joined a peaceful protest in support of striking Memphis sanitation workers, which was shattered when an assassin’s bullet took Kin’s life. A hundred cities exploded in riots, and the murder of Robert Kennedy shortly after only added to the darkness. The promised land now seemed more difficult to reach, but the legacy of 1960’s activism provided a foundation for future action (120 minutes).

Volume VI-Ain’t Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-1972): Muhammad Ali…Howard University…Gary, Indiana. Through these names, African Americans reclaimed their heritage in different ways. At the pinnacle of his success, the young boxer Cassius Clay announced his conversion to the Muslim faith and became Muhammad Ali. He embodied the spirit of resistance to the war in Vietnam by refusing army service, sacrificing his heavyweight title and fighting for his principles up to the Supreme Court. At Howard University, the nation’s premier Black institution, many students felt that the school was too slow in developing courses with an African American perspective. When angry students took over the university administration building in protest, a new chapter in Black education began. And at the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, 8,000 African Americans ratified a sweeping agenda, setting the stage for unprecedented Black political participation.

A Nation of Law? (1968-1971): The Black Panther Party…Fred Hampton…Attica…These names equaled controversy in the America of law and order promised by President Nixon. Urban rebellion and campus unrest had brought cycles of protest and reprisals, leaving many wondering if America was in fact “a nation of law.” For some, the Black Panther Party’s vow of self-defense “by any means necessary” evoked the memory of Malcolm X and overshadowed the Party’s community service activities. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared the Panthers the United States’ number one threat to internal security. With the help of a FBI informant, police raided the apartment of Illinois Party chairman Fred Hampton, killing him and another Panther leader. The law and order crackdown also had tragic results at New York’s Attica State Correctional Facility, where state troopers and guards stormed the prison after an inmate rebellion. Thirty-nine people were killed, all by gunfire from government weapons (120 minutes).

Volume VII-The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-1980): Busing…Maynard Jackson…Affirmative Action. From South Boston to Atlanta, Americans sought remedies for the problems of discrimination. In Boston, the issue was busing. White parents reacted violently to court-ordered busing, and Black parents steeled children for their role in this next civil rights battle. For both Blacks and Whites, busing proved an unpopular means of integrating schools, but in the words of one Black parent, “There was no turning back.” Undoing the wrongs of past discrimination proved equally complex in the workplace. Though fifty percent of Atlanta was African American, less than one percent of city contracts were awarded to African American firms. Following his election as Atlanta’s first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson aggressively pursued affirmative action in hiring and awarding city contracts. Even so, Atlanta’s persistently high poverty rate showed the limits of what local government could accomplish. Affirmative action faced its first crucial test in the Supreme Court when a White man sued a university on grounds of “reverse discrimination.”

Back to the Movement (1979-Mid 1980s): The powerlessness that was felt in many Black communities in the third decade of the civil rights movement provoked both rage and activism. In Miami’s Overtown section, a young Black salesman died after being beaten by police for a traffic violation, and the officers were acquitted by an all-white jury. Overtown exploded in the worst riot in a decade. In Chicago, the first female mayor gained great publicity by moving into Cabrini Green, a predominantly Black housing project. But in the eyes of many African Americans, Jane Byrne did little to change the problems of Chicago’s inner city. Despite severe opposition, the Black community mobilized a grassroots campaign to elect U.S. congressman Harold Washington to serve as Chicago’s first Black mayor. Their success became a symbol of hope and a model for change (120 minutes).

Before Stonewall
The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community

Before Stonewall pries open the closet door - setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes-horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. Revealing and often humorous, the widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today’s gay rights movement, from the events that led to the fevered 1969 riots to many other milestones in the brave fight for acceptance. Experience the unforgettable, decade by decade history of homosexuality in America through eye-opening historical footage and amazing interviews with those who lived through an often brutal closeted history (87 minutes).

After Stonewall
After Stonewall, the sequel to Before Stonewall, chronicles the history of lesbian and gay life from the riots of Stonewall tot he end of the century. Narrated by Melissa Etheridge, it captures the hard work, struggles, tragic defeats and exciting victories experienced since then. It explores how AIDS literally changed the direction of the movement (88 minutes).

The two films “before and After,” tell the remarkable tale of how homosexuals, a heretofore hidden and deprived group, became a vibrant and integral part of America’s family, and indeed, the world community.

Black Like Me

This is the gripping, real life story of journalist John Howard Griffin, a white man who, during the racial unrest of the 1950s, dyed his skin black and traveled throughout the Deep South. The terror and humiliation he suffered became a series of controversial articles (and later a best seller) that focused attention on the racist atrocities this nation chose to ignore. Jams Whitmore, Will Geer, and Roscoe Lee Browne head this remarkable cast (107 minutes).

The Celluloid Closet

What That’s Entertainment did for movie musicals, The Celluloid Closet does for Hollywood homosexuality, as this exuberant, eye-opening movie serves up a dazzling hundred year history of the role of gay men and lesbians on the silver screed (102 minutes).

Dateline NBC

Why Can’t We Live?

For the Living

The Story of the United States Holocaust Museum

Researching across time and place, For the Living follows the creators of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as they journey from the nation’s capital tot he death camp of Auschwitz-Birkneau, the forests of Poland, and the streets of Warsaw in their efforts to create a permanent, living reminder of the Holocaust. Their struggle to tell a story that is impossible to understand leads them beyond the world of 2 dimensional displays to unusual and resonating artifacts and, finally, the voices of the victims themselves (57 minutes).

Not in Our Town I and II

(57 Minutes)

Sankofa

A film by Haile Gerima

Sankofa, an Akan word meaning "one must return to the past in order to move forward," is the story about the transformation of Mona, a self possessed African-American woman sent on a spiritual journey in time to experience the pain of slavery and the discovery of her African identity. (122 minutes)

Skin Deep

A highly acclaimed documentary film on college students confronting racism

Skin Deep takes us on a journey into the hearts and minds of young people today as they struggle with their country's racial legacy. With remarkable openness and candor, a diverse group of college students from across the country come together to share their anger, pain, confusion, and hope with each other and with us. This gutsy film encourages self-examination and dialogue as it takes us beneath the surface of America's racial divide. 1996 (53 minutes).

For more information, please contact Pam Peter at papeter@syr.edu.

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