Walter, having been in your shoes many times, I learned to make an appointment with the superintendent, and arrive with alternatives in hand. To that end, I recommend several films.
Loving is a 2016, biographical drama film which tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage.
Just Mercy is a 2019 American biographical legal drama film co-written and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and starring Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson. It explores the work of young defense attorney Bryan Stevenson who represents poor people on death row in the South. Featured is his work with Walter McMillian, who had been wrongfully convicted of the murder of a young woman. The film is based on Stevenson's 2014 memoir, in which he explored his journey to making his life's work the defense of African American prisoners.
The film Just Mercy, is a particularly good choice, because it introduces students to the work of Bryan Stevensen who is the founder of The Equal Justic Initiative which has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. He has helped achieve United States Supreme Court decisions that prohibit sentencing children under 18 to death or to life imprisonment without parole. He has assisted in cases that have saved dozens of prisoners from the death penalty, advocated for the poor, and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.
Bryan Stevensen is also the founder of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, that commemorates the nearly 4,000 persons who were lynched in the South from 1877 to 1950.
My next recommendation is the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg (full film available on YouTube). In 2013, Judgment at Nuremberg was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" – to which I hasten to add ‘morally’ significant.
The fourth recommendation is the film Mudbound, the story of two World War II veterans – one white, one black – who return to rural Mississippi each to address racism and PTSD in his own way.
We Were Children is a film about the Canadian government’s residential school system as conveyed through the eyes of two young children who were forcibly taken from their homes and placed in church-run boarding schools. America did the same thing, but I don’t know of a film that tells the story (other than the Yellowstone sequel, 1923, which does a good job).
I have not seen it, but a new film, Killers of the Flower Moon, is reported to be an accurate portrayal of the culture of killing and systemic erasure that enabled the white settlers and federal government to not only dispossess the Osage people of their land, but also terrorize the families who had the headrights for the lucrative oil profits. This period of horrific, bloody history has aptly been called “the reign of terror.”
Having alternatives gives me something to fight for, instead of against, which often makes for more positive and productive interactions.
Hope this helps and please, let us know how this progresses.
