If you are looking for things to do on Juneteenth, watch a Black history documentary. Learning about Black history is important as an American because African Americans have significantly impacted and continue to impact the culture, society, socialism, and economy of America.
You can start your history lesson by watching one of the Black historical documentaries listed below or by reading any books here.
1. Juneteenth: A Celebration of Overcoming (2020)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: Not Rated
Juneteenth: A Celebration of Overcoming is a 42-minute documentary celebrating the ending of slavery while acknowledging the continuous struggle for racial equality. The documentary leaves viewers questioning the meaning of freedom.
2. 13th (2016)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: Not Rated
Netflix’s 13th is a documentary created by popular filmmaker Ava DuVernay that explores the history of racial inequality in the United States with a focus on the U.S. prison pipeline.
3. Fight The Power: The Movements That Changed America (2021)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: TV-PG
The History Channel presents Fight The Power: The Movements That Changed America is a docuseries produced and hosted by NBA legend Kareem Abdul-abbar, who interviews historians, authors, and other notable experts on the Black experience.
4. Eyes On The Prize (1987)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: TV-14
Eyes on the Prize is a 14-part television series that documents major historical events from 1954-1985 from the viewpoint of ordinary women and men.
5. Whose Streets? (2017)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: R
Whose Streets is a documentary created from the perspective of activists and leaders featuring footage from the 2014 Ferguson protests that followed the murder of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
6. High On The Hog (2021)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: TV-14
High On The Hog is a Netflix series where chef and writer Stephen Satterfield travels from Texas to Africa to explore how Black food is created. Through this progress he opens the conversation for how African American meals became the foundation of American food.
7. I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: PG-13
In 1979, author James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project entitled Remember This House. The book was written to document the personal accounts of the lives and assassinations of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. By the time of his death the book was not completed. I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary based on how filmmaker Raoul Peck envisioned James Baldwin’s Remember This House would end.
8. Get in The Way: The Journey of John Lewis (2015)
Genre: Documentary/ History | Rating: Not Rated
Get in The Way: The Journey of John Lewis is a documentary that follows the life journey of John Lewis starting with his childhood as the son of a sharecropper to his early adulthood as a civil rights activist and a congressman in his final years.
9. The Black Panthers: Vanguards the Revolution (2015)
Genre: Documentary | Rating: Not Rated
The Black Panthers: Vanguards the Revolution is a documentary on the rise of the Black Panther Party. The documentary also details the impact the organization had on American society with a focus on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Check out: Free Black History Documentaries That Will Teach You Everything Your Teacher Did Not
