NCJ Number
159764
Date Published
1995
Length
161 pages
Annotation
Through archival photographs, motion picture footage, and eyewitness reports, this video traces historic incidents of racial and ethnic discrimination from the dawn of American history to the present.
Abstract
The video opens with archival footage of 40,000 robed Ku Klux Klansmen marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., in 1925, voicing and representing their opposition to the participation of African-Americans, Catholics, and Jews in American life. The video then goes back in time to show an engraving of European settlers coming to the shores of the New World so they could express and practice their religious beliefs without being persecuted. The narrator then documents how those who sought freedom from persecution became the persecutors of those who did not share their beliefs. They persecuted the Quakers, the Baptists in Virginia, and the Irish Catholics, and others. Specific events that highlight hate and intolerance in America are reviewed with archival photos and some eyewitnesses. These events include the massacre of the Lacota Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee, the difficult period for Chinese laborers in the building of the railroad west, the confinement of Japanese Americans during World War II, the refusal of a funeral home to conduct the funeral of a Mexican-American soldier killed in World War II, the lynching of African-Americans in the South, and the lynching of a Jew in Georgia. Other portrayals are political appeals to prejudice and current proponents of discrimination, including David Duke and Louis Farrakhan. Accompanying the video is a booklet with 14 stories that show the consequences of hatred and intolerance, as well as a teacher's guide that describes ways to use the text and the video.