Created Equal: America's Civil Rights Struggle Film Screenings

The Virginia Historical Society (VHS) is proud to be one of the many organizations around the nation chosen to host the Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle film series in 2014. An initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Created Equal uses the power of documentary films to encourage communities to re-examine the meaning of civil rights in 21st century American society and explore the relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and the contemporary endeavors to redefine traditional concepts of equality.

Film Series Schedule

March 20 - Slavery by Another Name

• Based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning book by Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name tells the stories of black men who were unfairly imprisoned, abused, and subjected to deadly working conditions as convict laborers between the 1870s and 1940s.

June 19 - The Loving Story

• In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were arrested for living as a married couple in Virginia because she was of African American and Native American descent and he was white. The Loving Story documents the Lovings’ marriage and the legal battle that followed through little-known interviews and photographs shot for Life magazine.

August 28 - Freedom Riders

• In 1961, a small group of white and black volunteers rode public buses into the Deep South to demonstrate that interstate travel facilities remained segregated in defiance of the United States Supreme Court. The Freedom Riders faced arrest and beatings in their efforts to compel the federal government to enforce the law.

November 6 - The Abolitionists

• For almost a century following the American Revolution, abolitionists fought to end both slavery and racial injustice. The Abolitionists tells the story of several generations of men and women who led the battle to end slavery. Through innovative use of reenactments, this documentary puts a face on the anti-slavery movement.

The film series is made possible through a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative, in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  The film screenings and public programming are hosted by the VHS in partnership with the Richmond Peace Education Center, and is supported in part by the Gay Community Center of Richmond’s VHS Guy Kinman Research Award.