Movies To Watch This MLK Day That Remind Us What The Great Martin Luther King Jr. Was Fighting For

Everybody quotes the MLK "I Have a Dream" speech on this day, but we'd like to call attention to another, perhaps more timely and relevant one, from his Letter From Birmingham Jail:

"I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not beconcerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in aninescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider. "

We talk a lot about the beauty of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's dream - the dream of one day seeing Black and white children play together without a thought of the differences that separate them - but we don't talk nearly as much about the work that needed to be done, that still needs to be done, to get there. It's much easier to focus on the ideal than to dig into the uncomfortable process of figuring out what parts of our society need to change for us to get there.

That is not, however, to say that nobody is paying attention to this issue; not by a long shot. Every year, more and more effort is being put into making people see and understand exactly what Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to explain in Letter from Birmingham Jail - and others like him.

The fight to make America a better place for Black people (and people of color in general) has been a torch passed from generation to generation, and one of the ways people pass that torch is through film: Here are eight movies that try to help continue the work of activism and visibility that Martin Luther King Jr. started - what MLK Day is all about.

Selma

Of course, we have to start with one that's actually ABOUT Martin Luther King Jr.

David Oyelowo gives a powerful performance in this story about what MLK did when the President told him the racially motivated murders in the south in 1965 were simply too small a problem for him to worry about - namely, the marches in the city of Selma that summer, which kickstarted the Civil Rights movement.

Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures tells the hidden story about the incredibly intelligent women whose mathematical skills and dedication helped propel mankind to the moon - literally. Without these women - Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Goble Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughanand, Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson - we would never have landed Apollo 11 on the moon.

Get On The Bus

This Spike Lee film is about a group of Black men who all happen to be on a bus to the Million Man March in Washington DC. This group of very different men in 1995 start off as strangers, but end up becoming bonded when they share their experiences, showing how multifaceted the Black community truly is - and how important intersectionalism is in activism.

(Also a much younger version of Andre Braugher - AKA Brooklyn Nine-Nine's famously gay captain Raymond Holt - is in this clip, being so ironically homophobic I almost laughed. Almost.)

Loving

This is a very simple story - or, at least, it should have been. Loving is about Richard Perry Loving and Mildred Jeter, the first interracial couple to ever be married in the U.S. - also the first couple to be jailed and tried as criminals for the crime of legally marrying and living together.

Loving tells the true story of what Loving and Jeter had to go through to be together - namely, the 1967 landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which set the legal precedent that states had to honor marriages performed in other states.

(Also, prepare to be shocked by casting again, because Nick Kroll is in this movie as an entirely serious lawyer.)

Talk To Me

This is an interesting one: Talk To Me is about how the death of Martin Luther King Jr. changed radio forever - and may have had a part in inspiring the riots that lead to so much change.

Don Cheadle plays Peter Green, the original radio shock jockey - an ex-con who made waves in his new radio job fresh out of jail, shocking and electrifying the city of Washington D.C. and the world. The film follows his career right up to his 1984 memorial service, making for a true profile of one of U.S. history's most interesting men.

Lean On Me

This is what people really mean when they say "tough love." Morgan Freeman boils down the whole essence of the film Lean On Me in this one famous clip. This principal's methods may be unorthodox and even controversial, but he gets results - taking over New Jersey's East Side High and cleaning keeping out the drug dealers and troublemakers and doing everything he could to get his kids to a better future.

This 1989 film was based on a true story about one man who cared so much about his students that it hurt him, and who brought a struggling school back to life.

42

42 is now a tribute to not just one, but TWO of the greats. It's a film about Jackie Robinson, the first ever Black MLB player, signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946.

Chadwick Boseman - the other great, may he rest in peace - shows the quiet determination that allowed Robinson to keep his head down and ignore scalding racism from all sides, simply allowing his talent to shine through and do the talking for him.

The Great Debaters

In 1935, the Wiley College debate team, a debate team at an all-Black college in the Jim Crow south, defeated the reigning national debate champion, the University of Southern California, in a debate about black students attending white colleges.

The movie The Great Debaters changes this plot slightly, making it Harvard instead of USC, the other events track - the debate team, headed by teacher Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) and and student James Farmer Jr. (Forest Whitaker) still takes the championship, and makes a convincing case for integrating colleges, in a film containing too many moving monologues to count.