Black History Documentaries on Amazon and Netflix

Netflix and Amazon Prime recently released or reorganized a slew of free Black content on their streaming sites to include a sizable selection of Black documentaries.

As a student of Black Studies and journalism, the documentary genre lives at the intersection of my two greatest loves, Black History and storytelling. In short, Black history documentaries are my love language.

I’ve expressed my love of learning about Black History by visiting museums at home and while we travel.  But museums aren’t the only medium filled with lessons on Black History.  Documentaries chronicle untold narratives to add depth and context to events, eras, and sometimes entire generations.

Here’s a list of some of the current offerings of Black documentaries (in alpha order) that you might want to add to your binge-watching queue:

Amazon Prime

1. A Century of Black Cinema
2. After Selma
3. Althea
4. Anita: Speaking Truth to Power
5. Answering the Call
6. August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
7. Back to Natural
8. Becoming Barack: Evolution of a Leader
9. Before the West Coast
10. Black, White & US
11. Bud Fowler and the Page Fence Giants
12. Death of a Black Panther Fred Hampton
13. Escape from Candyland
14. February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four
15. Fresh Dressed
16. Half the Picture
17. Harriet Tubman: The call her Moses
18. I Am Not Your Negro
19. John Lewis: Get in the Way
20. John L. Walker: Striving for Equality
21. Ken Burns: Jackie Robinson
22. Ken Burns: The Central Park Five
23. King: Man of Peace in a Time of War
24. Little White Lie
25. Major!
26. Marcus Garvey: A Giant of Black Politics
27. Mr. Civil Rights: Thurgood Marshall & The NAACP
28. My Life with Rosie
29. Obama to Selma
30. Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me
31. Salute
32. Sis, You OK?
33. Spies of Mississippi
34. Tell Them We Are Rising
35. The Black Miami
36. The Black Panthers
37. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
38. The Legend: Bessie Coleman
39. The Trials of Muhammad Ali
40. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
41. TV in Black the First 50 years
42. Two Black Men a Week
43. When They Were Young

Netflix

1. 13^th
2. Becoming
3. I am Bolt
4. LA 92
5. Let It Fall
6. miles davis: birth of the cool
7. Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story
8. Quincy
9. Strong Island
10. Teach Us All
11. The Black Godfather
12. The Death and Life o Marsha P. Johnson
13. The Innocence Files
14. The Two Killings of Sam Cooke
15. They Gotta Have Us
16. Time: The Kalief Browder Story
17. Uppity: The Willie T. Ribbs Story
18. What Happened Miss Simone?
19. Who Killed Jam Master Jay?
20. Who Killed Malcolm X?
21. Who Shot the Sheriff?

Legend: Bessie Coleman (image courtesy of amazon.com)

Which movies are you planning to add to your binge-watching list?