SDCC Library: Black Studies: Streaming Media

This page contains streaming media in the San Diego City College Library's streaming video databases. To access the videos below, you will need to authenticate into the database by using your Single Sign On login.

Feature Films

42 (Swank)
Hero is a word we hear often in sports, but heroism is not always about achievements on the field of play. “42” tells the story of two men—the great Jackie Robinson and legendary Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey—whose brave stand against prejudice forever changed the world by changing the game of baseball. In 1946, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) put himself at the forefront of history when he signed Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) to the team, breaking Major League Baseball’s infamous color line. But the deal also put both Robinson and Rickey in the firing line of the public, the press and even other players. Facing unabashed racism from every side, Robinson was forced to demonstrate tremendous courage and restraint by not reacting in kind, knowing that any incident could destroy his and Rickey’s hopes. Instead, Number 42 let his talent on the field do the talking—ultimately winning over fans and his teammates, silencing his critics, and paving the way for others to follow.
BlackkKlansman (Swank)
A black detective sets out to infiltrate the Colorado chapter of the Ku Klux Klan with the help of his Jewish colleague. In the midst of the 1970s civil rights movement, they risk their lives to obtain insider information on the violent organization.
Black Panther (Swank)
A superhero known as Black Panther defends Wakanda, a technologically advanced country in Africa that has hidden itself away from the rest of the world. Now, he must face a dissident who wants to sell the country's natural resources to fund an uprising.
Boyz N the Hood (Swank)
The tale of three teens growing up in a tough L.A. neighborhood: one lives for sports; another for crime; and the last learns from his father about strength of character and being responsible.
Fences (Swank)
Adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a black garbage collector in 1950s Pittsburgh named Troy Maxson. Bitter about his lot in life, Maxson frequently takes out his frustrations on his loved ones.
Get Out (Swank)
In Universal Pictures’ Get Out, a speculative thriller from Blumhouse (producers of The Visit, Insidious series and The Gift) and the mind of Jordan Peele, when a young African-American man visits his white girlfriend’s family estate, he becomes ensnared in a more sinister real reason for the invitation.
Harriet (Swank)
The incredible true story of one of America's greatest heroes, Harriet Tubman. From her escape from slavery to the dangerous missions she led, setting free hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad.
If Beale Street Could Talk
African-American teen sweethearts Fonny and Tish are ripped apart when Fonny is wrongly arrested for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman because of the machinations of a racist cop. A pregnant Tish relies on her Harlem community while seeking justice for Fonny.
Judas and the Black Messiah (Swank)
FBI informant William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) infiltrates the Illinois Black Panther Party and is tasked with keeping tabs on their charismatic leader, Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya). A career thief, O’Neal revels in the danger of manipulating both his comrades and his handler, Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons). Hampton’s political prowess grows just as he’s falling in love with fellow revolutionary Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback). Meanwhile, a battle wages for O’Neal’s soul. Will he align with the forces of good? Or subdue Hampton and The Panthers by any means, as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) commands?
Moonlight (Swank)
MOONLIGHT is the tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
Nope (Swank)
Following their father's shocking death, Hollywood animal wrangler OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) begin observing unexplained phenomena on their vast Southern California ranch that leads them down an obsessive rabbit hole as they plot attempts to capture the mystery on camera. Along with a former child star turned family theme park ringmaster (Steven Yeun) who neighbors the siblings, the pair's efforts to chase the spectacle soon bring terrifying consequences and unimaginable horror.
A Raisin in the Sun (Swank)
A black family living in a cramped Chicago tenement in the 1940s have the opportunity to improve their social standing via an insurance-policy check, but are in disagreement about how best to spend the windfall. Lorraine Hansberry adapted the script from her hit Broadway play.
Till (Swank)
The story of Emmett Louis Till and the legacy of his mother who pursued justice for her lynched son.
Us (Swank)
Adelaide Wilson, her husband Gabe, her son Jason and her daughter Zora head to Santa Cruz, California, for a beach vacation at Adelaide's childhood home with their friends the Tylers. That night, the Wilsons are terrorized by a family of doppelgangers with murderous motivations.

Documentaries

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama (Swank)
This look at the 2008 presidential campaign profiles Barack Obama and his journey to being elected President of the United States, from the exhausting primary elections and the Democratic National Convention to his eventual victory. Directed by Amy Rice and Alicia Sams.
I Am Not Your Negro (Kanopy)
An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism. In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends--Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript. Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original words and flood of rich archival material. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for.
bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation (Kanopy)
bell hooks is one of America's most accessible public intellectuals. In this two-part video, extensively illustrated with many of the images under analysis, she makes a compelling argument for the transformative power of cultural criticism. In Part One, bell hooks discusses the theoretical foundations and positions that inform her work (such as the motives behind representations, as well as their power in social and cultural life). bell hooks also explains why she insists on using the phrase "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to describe the interlocking systems of domination that define our reality. In Part Two, she demonstrates the value of cultural studies in concrete analysis through such subjects as the OJ Simpson case, Madonna, Spike Lee, and Gangsta rap. The aim of cultural analysis, she argues, should be the production of enlightened witnesses - audiences who engaged with the representations of cultural life knowledgeably and vigilantly.
White Like Me (Kanopy)
White Like Me, based on the work of acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. In a stunning reassessment of the American ideal of meritocracy and claims that we've entered a post-racial society, Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class, and argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today. For years, Tim Wise’s bestselling books and spellbinding lectures have challenged some of our most basic assumptions about race in America. White Like Me is the first film to bring the full range of his work to the screen — to show how white privilege continues to shape individual attitudes, electoral politics, and government policy in ways too many white people never stop to think about.
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy (Film Platform Collection)
Powerful Oscar nominated documentary about when fate places people in the wrong place at the wrong time and when fear and suspicion fuel injustice. The once-famous case of the nine Scottsboro Boys is the tale of such a dramatic miscarriage of justice that started in the early 1930s: nine poor young black men, charges of white rape, a fancy New York Jewish defense lawyer, an all-white Alabama jury, sentences of death culminating in a dogged international (Communist inspired) campaign to free the "Scottsboro Boys".

Databases

Use the databases listed below to explore streaming video titles in our collection yourself.

Film Platform Collection This link opens in a new window
(Alexander Street/PQ) Streaming video collection of 400+ titles, curated for academic audiences. Includes selections from prestigious film festivals plus many OSCAR®-nominated and OSCAR®-shortlisted documentaries. Click the red filter button to sort the catalog.
Captioning
All titles should be captioned. Please contact spesce@sdccd.edu if you find one that is not.
Public Performance Rights (to show outside the classroom)
"In the case of content that can potentially be publicly performed, Customer must secure permission from ProQuest’s Licensor and/or the copyright holder for any public performance other than reasonable classroom and educational uses."
Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
(Infobase Learning) Streaming video collection of over 36,000 full-length videos and 275,000 video clips on a variety of subject areas. Includes documentaries and collections from BBC, California Newsreel, History Channel, HBO, Frontline, Ken Burns, Modern Marvels and many, many more. Find these three videos by title in the search box: California State of Mind, Paywall, and The Pushouts.
Captioning
Captioning available *except* for non-English-language videos and videos without dialogue; recently-added videos may take up to 3 weeks to get captioned.
Public Performance Rights (to show outside the classroom)
"Permitted Uses of the Web Platform: The Web Platform is licensed solely to Licensee and Authorized Users for classroom teaching, research, presentations, and educational non-commercial multimedia projects for use in educational institutions, provided no admission or other fees are charged for public viewing. Licensee and Authorized Users may stream, display, publicly perform, or exhibit the Video Titles asynchronously on a single computer or network, course management system, or password-protected Web Platform. Licensee and Authorized Users may electronically save, organize, and share Video Titles or parts thereof with other Authorized Users using tools provided with the Web Platform. Licensee may create and distribute transcripts." Click for Terms of Service
Kanopy playlist This link opens in a new window
(Kanopy) This is a curated Kanopy playlist of 16 streaming video documentary films requested by faculty. Follow the red buttons to Log Into SDCity with your school credentials. Then use the search box in Kanopy to find your video by title. (Only some of the videos are shown in the gallery). Titles available: bell hooks || The 400 Blows || The Codes of Gender || Delano Manongs || I Am Not Your Negro || The Illusionists || Jamaica and Tamarindo || A Man Called Bee || The Mask You Live In || No Small Matter || Precious Knowledge || Seven Samurai || Tough Guise 2 || VIncent Who? || Visiones: Latino Art & Culture ||White Like Me
NOTE: New titles are added to this curated collection by faculty request only (contact spesce@sdccd.edu) when funds are available.
Captioning
All titles should be captioned. Please contact spesce@sdccd.edu if you find one that is not.
Public Performance Rights (to show outside the classroom) Public performance rights (PPR) are required for films shown shown outside the classroom environment. Not all Kanopy films have PPR, so please read this Kanopy page for more info: Does Kanopy Support Public Performance Rights?
Swank Digital Campus This link opens in a new window
(Swank) Streaming video collection of 300 feature films from major Hollywood studios and other producers. NOTE: The following films have restricted access and may not show up in a search of this database. If not, faculty must send a request to citylib@sdccd.edu to get a link for student access: Hocus Pocus, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Captioning
All videos in this collection should be captioned. Please contact spesce@sdccd.edu if you find one that is not.
Public Performance Rights (to show outside the classroom)
Per our contract, "The Titles in this license do not include public performance." Campus events not tied to a credit-bearing class are considered public performance and would require purchase of public performance rights. Contact spesce@sdccd.edu to get information on licensing from the vendor (per day, per location, per title basis).