Arcadia Public Library

A towboat drifts down the Mississippi River, due for the port of New Orleans. The water, the banks, the bright lights of a port ahead, the lure of a coming paycheck and a home-cooked meal: This is the world of Barge. On board, dry land’s misfits find purpose and direction twenty-eight days at a time as the steady hands of an industrial ecosystem teeming with line boats, fleet boats, and a few million tons of cargo moved each year. Amongst the crew...

This documentary uncovers the largely unknown and pivotal role played by Black landowning families in the deep South who controlled over a million acres in the 1960s. They were prepared to put their land and their lives on the line in the fight for racial equality and the right to vote in America’s most segregated and violently racist state.. In the face of escalating terror, Black landowners and independent farmers provided safe havens, collateral...

In much of America, progress in HIV/AIDS treatment suggests the worst is behind us, but every year 50,000 Americans are still diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS. Astonishingly, it’s one of the leading causes of death of African American women. And nearly half of the Americans with HIV live in the South, where the AIDS epidemic has taken root in rural communities.. WILHEMINA’S WAR is an intimate, personal narrative that tells the story of...

In this one-hour election special, award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa takes us on location to: Cleveland, Ohio where Arab Americans who are Muslim and Christian register to vote and run for office to combat Islamophobia; Orlando, Florida as Latino Evangelicals find their political voice and support conservative causes as well as immigration reform; Orange County, California, where Asian American candidates face off in one of the state's predominantly...

The award-winning documentary film THE GIRLS IN THE BAND tells the poignant, untold stories of female jazz and big band instrumentalists and their fascinating, history-making journeys from the late 30s to the present day. The many first-hand accounts of the challenges faced by these talented women provide a glimpse into decades of racism and sexism that have existed in America.. They wiggled, they jiggled, they wore low cut gowns and short shorts,...

This inspiring story reveals the power of football to change people’s lives. Hundreds of millions of kids play football every day. For many of them, football grants are the only way to access education or the ticket to a better future. In some cases, it is their only way to survive.. The life of Mubiru Rigan depends on one of these sport grants. Rigan dreams of being the next Fernando Torres and scoring the goal that brings Uganda their first African...

Ashley, a young Native-American Caucasian girl, converts to Islam in hopes of finding structure in a life where it never existed. Surrounded by drugs and alcohol, at age 8 Ashley becomes a ward of the state. She is separated from her brother and shuffled between the homes of extended family members where she bares witness to prostition, drug dealing and her own mother’s overdose.. As a teenager Ashley seeks stability and unexpectedly finds it in...

"A "choral history" of African Americans covering 400 years of history in the voices of 80 writers, edited by the bestselling, National Book Award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. Last year marked the four hundredth anniversary of the first African presence in the Americas--and also launched the Four Hundred Souls project, spearheaded by Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracism Institute of American University, and Keisha Blain,...

Detective Alex Cross tells the story of an ancestor, Abraham Cross, and his experiences with lawyer Ben Corbett, recounting one man's pursuit of justice in the face of the resurgence of Ku Klux Klan racism and violence in 1906 Eudora, Mississippi.

A fresh and genre-defying film about the life of radical Chicano lawyer, author and counter-cultural icon, Oscar Zeta Acosta — the basis for the character Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, written by his friend, legendary journalist-provocateur Hunter S. Thompson.. Channeling the spirit of the psychedelic 60's and the joyful irreverence of “Gonzo” journalism, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BROWN BUFFALO shows Acosta’s personal and creative...