Waging Change

The grim news made international headlines: On August 21, 1971, prison authorities discovered a gun on famed Soledad Brother author, activist and San Quentin inmate George Jackson. A shootout ensued, killing Jackson, two other inmates and three guards, and wounding three more officers. Authorities asserted that only lawyer Stephen Bingham could have smuggled the weapon into the prison. Fearing that a conviction for abetting the guards’ deaths would lead to his own murder, the attorney fled, beginning a long, strange odyssey of pseudonymous exile. Strange indeed for the Yale-graduate scion of politically prominent New England elites.

With unique access to a sitting member of Congress, this documentary tells the complex story of Rep. Barbara Lee, a steadfast voice for human rights, peace, and economic and racial justice in Congress who cut her teeth as a volunteer for the Black Panther Party and was the lone vote in opposition to the broad authorization of military force following the September 11th attacks.

Stripped of their constitutional rights, their homes, businesses, and dignity, 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into dusty desolate camps, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire. Ironically it was the All-American pastime of baseball that saved their sanity.

Seventy-five years ago, Executive Order 9066 paved the way to the profound violation of constitutional rights that resulted in the forced incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Featuring George Takei and many others who were incarcerated, as well as newly rediscovered photographs of Dorothea Lange, And Then They Came for Us brings history into the present, retelling this difficult story and following Japanese American activists as they speak out against the Muslim registry and travel ban. Knowing our history is the first step to ensuring we do not repeat it.

Albie Sachs is a lawyer, writer, art lover and freedom fighter during the lead up to the overthrow of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Long overlooked yet hugely influential, a towering Jewish American humanitarian finally receives her due in this inspiring biography of the visionary Zionist and women’s rights leader who helped shape modern Jewish life. As founder of Hadassah, builder of a modern healthcare and social service system in pre-state Israel, and fierce advocate for education and Jewish–Arab cooperation, Henrietta Szold was a force of nature who galvanized a global network of Jewish women. Her boldest achievement, Youth Aliyah, rescued thousands of Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe. Through archival footage, intimate letters, and firsthand reflections lifted by Tovah Feldshuh’s stirring narration, this rousing tribute honors a trailblazer whose moral clarity, courage, and humanity continue to echo today.

From the well-publicized events at San Francisco State in 1968 to the image of black students with guns emerging from the takeover of the student union at Cornell University in April, 1969, the struggle for a more relevant and meaningful education, including demands for black and ethnic studies programs, became a clarion call across the country in the late 1960's. Through the stories of these young men and women who were at the forefront of these efforts, Agents of Change examines the untold story of the racial conditions on college campuses and in the country that led to these protests. Agents of Change links the past to the present and the present to the past--making it not just a movie but a movement.

A journalist reports on JFK assassination, helps enact Great Society reforms in White House, co-founds women's political group, leads 1977 women's conference, and champions Equal Rights Amendment.

Judging Juries reveals the barriers to jury service which deprive defendants in criminal cases of juries which represents a cross-section of the community. The film looks at the issue of juror pay, the use of peremptory challenges which permit the dismissal of potential jurors for no stated reason and the use of former felony convictions as a bar to jury service.

When Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison, courageous South African musicians broke through Apartheid's barriers to form a 500-voice, multiracial youth choir. Threatened with bombs and thwarted at every turn, they prevailed and railroaded across the country aboard The Peace Train. Singing their way into the hearts, minds and soul of a divided nation in the midst of a civil war, they promoted a peaceful transition to democracy and went on to become Mandela's face of the new nation. When Voices Meet documents the trials, tribulations and triumphs of those musician activists and young choir members. They performed together for seven years; never lost touch with one another; and reunited 20 years later to tell their stories.