full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/black-isblack-aint-adam-clayton-powell/
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In conjunction with Black History Month, Docuramafilms, a distribution
company that specializes in cutting-edge movies, sent me a couple of
first-rate documentaries that are available from Netflix. The first was
Marlon Riggs’s “Black Is…Black Ain’t”, an examination of the
contradictions of Black identity that first aired on PBS in the late
1990s. As a gay African-American, Riggs was particularly attuned to
homophobia in the Black community. He died of AIDS in 1994 and the film
was completed by his supporters. The second is “Adam Clayton Powell”, an
absolutely stunning portrait of the U.S.’s most powerful Black
politician from the 1930s to his death of cancer in 1972. Seen together,
these films help us understand the complexities of Black identity and
politics.
