Marshall and the Movies

Shot by Swedish filmmakers. Chronicling black American advocates and revolutionaries in the immediate post-Civil Rights era. Narrated by present-day observers. Göran Hug Olsson’s documentary “The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975” contains multitudes.

This selection for my “F.I.L.M. of the Week” is one that contains a fascinating mix of perspectives that harmonize into an essential, yet often overlooked, chapter of American history. Far too often, popular culture (read: white-dominated culture) tends to get very foggy about race relations in the United States after the passage of landmark civil rights legislation in 1965, a tendency closely tied into the propagation of the post-racial lie. But those successes did not necessarily accelerate integration, equality or acceptance. Instead, for many in the black community, it led to more intensive questioning of their place in society.

“The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975” provides a vital primary document of the Black Power movement with a bit of an outsider’s perspective. The Swedes behind the camera did not necessarily approach the movement with the same fear or judgment as an American might, and it makes a difference in the presentation. From J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO disrupting the activist communities to the Black Panthers’ efforts to create self-sustaining communities to help their own, Olson’s compilation of the tapes cuts across a wide swath of the black experience that deserve recognition and reckoning. We get to know important figures like Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis in their own words while also learning their importance to the next generation of thought leaders. While perhaps not nearly as creative as the recent “I Am Not Your Negro,” this film is no less vital and important in connecting the present to the past.