Vintage Black American History & Culture Documentaries

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Urban Gospel Ministry of Robert and Lily Butler



Full doc here: http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/FilmPage.php?title=151

Ms. Butler, celebrated for her complex old time gospel singing as well as her incisive, melodic guitar style, made her concert debut in 1990 at the age of 76. She and her husband taught the traditional gospel songs of their heritage to their many children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Ms. Butler and her son, the Reverend Robert Butler, play at folk festivals and churches throughout the region, and also practice a gospel ministry.

 

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Gandy Dancers



Full doc here:http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/FilmPage.php?title=101

Musical traditions and recollections of eight retired African-American railroad track laborers whose occupational folk songs were once heard on railroads that crisscross the South. They recount experiences in the segregated South, describe organized labor and occupational safety standards, and demonstrate railroad calls that survive today as expressions of religious faith, social protest and sexually explicit poetry. A film by Barry Dornfeld and folklorist Maggie Holtzberg.

 

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Profile: Nellie Mae Rowe

Nellie Mae Rowe (July 4, 1900 - October 18, 1982) was an African-American self-taught artist from Fayette, Georgia. Although she is best known today for her colorful works on paper, Rowe worked across mediums, creating drawings, collages, altered photographs, hand-sewn dolls, home installations and sculptural environments. She was said to have an "instinctive understanding of the relation between color and form."[1] Her work focuses on race, gender, domesticity, African-American folklore, and spiritual traditions.

Rowe is now recognized as one of the most important American folk artists. Her work is held in numerous collections, including at the following museums: the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

 

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The Music District



Full doc here: http://www.folkstreams.net/film,52

The Music District previews a one-hour documentary profiling four African American traditional music groups practicing and performing for fans and congregants in the neighborhood churches and nightclubs of Washington, D.C. The film features the Orioles (r&b quartet); Junk Yard Band (go-go); The Kings of Harmony (United House of Prayer shout band); and The Four Echoes (jubilee quartet). A film by Susan Levitas from California Newsreel.

 

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Accent: music and dance of the Georgia Sea Islands (1962)



A segment on the Georgia Sea Island Singers shot at St. Simons Island – featuring Bessie Jones, John Davis, Peter Davis, Willis Proctor, Mable Hillery, Emma Lee Ramsey, Joe Dixon, Joe Armstrong, and others unidentified, and guest host Alan Lomax – from the short-lived CBS educational program "Accent," hosted by poet John Ciardi, 1962. (Commercials retained.)

 

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Home of the Double Headed Eagle



Full doc here: http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/FilmPage.php?title=142

In 2004, Ali Colleen Neff and photographer Tim Gordon made a wrong turn off Highway 61 near Vicksburg. They soon encountered The Home of the Double-Headed Eagle, a kaleidoscopic work of visionary architecture created by the Reverend H. D. Dennis and his wife, Margaret Dennis. The couple, now in their nineties, has been inviting visitors to explore their creation and to hear the non-denominational gospel since 1980, when Reverend began to build the work from the frame of Margaret’s little country store. On a number of subsequent visits, Neff, a student in the UNC Folklore M. A. Curriculum, gathered the couples’ life stories, which do much to explain the transcendence and global symbolism imbued in the Dennis’ work. She returned in 2006 with documentarian Brian Graves of the UNC Communications Studies Ph.D. program to create this short doc. This piece, filmed on a single day, focuses on the context surrounding the visionary architecture of the Reverend H. D. and Margaret Dennis.

 

[CEITEDMOFO]

this is a dope thing to do.

 

[KingsOfKings]

subs

 

[Amor fati]

We Are Arabbers (2004)


We Are Arabbers follows the horse-and-wagon produce vendors along the streets of Baltimore, Maryland as they struggle to make a living and maintain their unique culture. Once an integral part of society, hucksters, hawkers and peddlers distributed goods and services throughout the cities of America announcing their trade with a holler or song. Today, only a handful remain to share their moving stories, revealing their hidden network of back alley stables. Along this journey, we meet the old-timers, their contemporaries and customers, the Scottish ferrier, the Amish wheelwrights and the Mennonite harness-makers. The arabbers continue their heritage into the twenty-first century. Do you know who they are? Do you know their history?

Watch here: We Are Arabbers | Folkstreams

Wow this is very interesting and unique an culture indeed. It's interesting how they have farm animals in the city. Nice post mate.

 

[#1 pick]

Subs

 

[Akata Man Bromo]

Dope thread repped

 

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Wow this is very interesting and unique an culture indeed. It's interesting how they have farm animals in the city. Nice post mate.

Thanks

 

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Steppin' (1992)



This one hour film introduces viewers to the step show, an exciting dance style popular today among black fraternities and sororities. In addition to many rousing, crowd-pleasing performances, the program examines the cultural roots of steppin' in African dancing, military marching and hip-hop music, and discusses its contemporary social significance on college campuses. Made by Jeral Harkness in 1992 and taped at the University of Indiana.

Watch here: Steppin' | Folkstreams

 

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Jazz Parades



Jazz Parades is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). Jazz Parades shows the cathartic Sunday jazz parades of social clubs in New Orleans and an overview of the jazz scene in the convergence of "the Uptown Blacks with the Downtown Creoles." In interviews the participants explain the ritual aspect of "turning loose" the dead, celebrating Mardi Gras, and sublimating violence by dancing in the streets. Their heroes (Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Buddy Bolden, Johnny Dodds, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Kid Ory, Manuel Perez, and John Robichaux) started out in the red light district, where the madames became the first patrons of jazz. Crosscutting between African and jazz parades reveal their common links. The documentary features the Majestic Band, the Preservation Hall Band (Willie Humphrey, James "Sing" Miller, Emanuel Sayles, Alonzo Stewart, Kid Thomas Valentine and Chester Zardis) and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Greg Davis, Charles Joseph, Kirk Joseph, Roger Lewis, Jenell Marshall and Ephrem Townes) at the Glass House and participating in a funeral parade. Narrated by Alan Lomax. The Association for Cultural Equity’s Alan Lomax Archive channel on YouTube additionally streams outtakes from this film: other strong performances by Flo Anckle and the Majestic Brass Band, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, White Eagles Mardi Gras Indians, Chester Zardis, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, and Beatrice Austin and Iona Raybon on second lining, funeral parades, and various social aid and pleasure clubs.

Watch here: Jazz Parades | Folkstreams

 

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"Stubborn As A Mule!" is an internationally award winning film that presents an eye opening depiction of lesser known historical facts and contemporary commentary regarding the call for reparations for African-Americans. In the process, the film disseminates black history that is not taught in most educational systems.