Erik Barnouw
A documentary look at the confluence of the Red scare, McCarthyism, and blacklists with the post-war activism by African Americans seeking more and better roles on radio, television, and stage. It begins in Harlem, measures the impact of Paul Robeson and the campaign to bring him down, looks at the role of HUAC, J. Edgar Hoover and of journalists such as Ed Sullivan, and ends with a tribute to Canada Lee. Throughout are interviews with men and women who were there, including Dick Campbell of the Rose McLendon Players and Fredrick O'Neal of the American Negro Theatre. In the 1940s and 1950s, anti-Communism was one more tool to maintain Jim Crow and to keep down African-Americans.
This documentary is a compilation of silent black-and-white film footage shot by the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after the atomic bomb blasts in early August 1945. English-language voice-over narration has been added, along with a few scenes from American sources. The film shows the destruction and injury caused by the atomic bombs in graphic detail.
Follows the efforts to gain the right to vote for Negroes through a succession of legal decision and social changes. Dramatizes the case of Smith vs. Allwright et al. Reviews the long conflict to extend voting rights to a large electorate beginning with the Constitutional Convention's compromise over dropping property requirements through and including the enactment of the 15th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution. Cites legal precedents established by the U.S. Supreme Court through their decisions concerning the control of state primaries in 1918 and 1935 and the later reversals in 1941 and 1944. Points to the issues involved in Federal encroachment upon state's rights.
Reconstructs the case of United States vs. Darby Lumber Company, which, in 1941, resolved long struggles over the question of whether Congress had the right to set minimum wages, limit child labor, and in other respects legislate employment standards.
Shows the relationship of the Constitution to organized labor. Presents the case of Whitaker et al. v. North Carolina, in which a group of unions challenged the constitutionality of a state ban on the closed shop, the union shop, and other union security provisions. Traces the role of the fourteenth amendment in labor struggles.
Shows the relationship of the Constitution to the issue of prior restraint on freedom of expression. Presents the case of Burstyn v. Wilson challenging the constitutionality of New York State's film censorship system and Cantwell v. Connecticut involving questions of freedom of speech and religion. Discusses the questions pertaining to freedom of speech when multiplied via recordings or film, and how the claims of free expression can be weighed against claims for local, state, or federal protection.
