Preface:

What does the dominant narrative of the civil rights move-ment—as expressed through film—reveal, but also distort and suppress? This course used film and media resources, including local ones from Philadelphia, to help us think to-gether about how to develop, energize, and expand course units on the Civil Rights Movement. Some of the questions we will consider include: how have filmmakers depicted the lives, aspirations, and strategies of those who have strug-gled for equality in the United States of America between the late 1920s through the mid-1970s? How can course units place the Civil Rights Movement in the context of oth-er freedom struggles, including Black Lives Matter, that are part of students’ contemporary landscape? What strategies have filmmakers adopted as they try to give audio-visual form to freedom, the struggle for it, and the denial of it? How can students evaluate the truth claims and versions of history and freedom offered in films?