This Month

8 Movies / January 17

TCM celebrates MLK Day, the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., with eight TCM premieres of documentaries from The Film Group, a Chicago-based production company. The films were sparked by the conflicts of the 1968 Democratic Convention and looked at civil rights issues of that period.

The Film Group originally was set up to create industrial films and ads. The company turned to social documentaries after founding member Mike Gray and his crew were shooting a commercial and were shocked by police violence on the streets of Chicago during the Convention. They filmed the chaos, triggering a series of documentaries that formed the educational series The Urban Crisis and the New Militants.

Produced by the Film Group’s Bill Cottle, the series consists of self-contained documentaries that “teach by raising questions rather than by attempting to answer them.” The films tell their stories through editing rather than voice-over narration and show “real events with real people acting spontaneously.”

Thanks to donations of prints by Film Group members and preservation grants awarded by the National Film Preservation Foundation, the Chicago Film Archives was able to preserve the documentary series.

Here are the films:

Cicero March (1966) details a civil-rights march on September 4, 1966, as Robert Lucas led activists through Cicero, Illinois, to protest restrictions in housing laws. As white residents responded with jeers and insults, the police struggled to prevent a riot.

Black Moderates and Black Militants (1969) documents an unrehearsed conversation among three members of the Black Panther Party, including future congressman Bobby Rush and the principal of an African American high school. The participants debate strategies for ending racism.

The People’s Right to Know: Police Vs. Reporters (1968) features photojournalist Paul Sequeira speaking on his experience covering the 1968 Convention and the police attempts to physically restrict reporters’ access.

Law and Order Vs. Dissent (1968) intercuts footage of the police response to the demonstrations at the Convention with press conferences by Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department in which they blame the violence on student protestors.

The Right to Dissent: A Press Conference (1968) documents a pre-convention press conference of the National Coalition to End the War in Vietnam. David Dellinger and Rennie Davis recount their difficulties in dealing with the City of Chicago to plan their protests against the Convention.

Social Confrontation: The Battle of Michigan Avenue (1968) shows the events at the 1968 Convention including National Guardsmen detaining protestors, mass arrests near Grant Park, and Mayor Daley cursing at opponents from the convention floor.

American Revolution 2 (1969) charts social turbulence in Chicago of the late 1960s. It includes footage of the Democratic Convention protest and riot, a critique of the events by working-class African Americans in Chicago, and attempts by the Black Panther Party to organize poor white youths on the city’s north side.

The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971) began as a documentary of activist Fred Hampton and the Illinois Black Panther Party. During production, Hampton was assassinated, and the focus turned to an investigative report of his death. Through re-enactments, evidence from the scene, and interviews, the film implicates the Chicago police in Hampton’s death.