Some 300 million years ago, an eruption of magma produced the massive granite rock that is known today as Stone Mountain in Georgia. Humans first stepped foot on this remarkable landmark around 4,000 B.C.E. and have continued to gather at its summit for more than six millennia. In 1915, one such gathering took place that would alter Stone Mountain in the eyes of Georgians and the world.

At midnight on November 25, 1915, a dozen white supremacists climbed to the top of Stone Mountain and burned a cross, inspired by the D.W. Griffith’s propaganda film The Birth of a Nation. This marked the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, a violent terror group that grew to a membership of more than 4 million in 10 years, and cemented Stone Mountain’s link with that group. The brothers who owned the mountain, the 85 year-old president of the Atlanta United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Klan-sympathizing sculptor Gutzon Borglum (who would go on to carve Mount Rushmore) then launched their plan to etch three Confederate generals into the mountain’s façade. In 1972 the carving was completed, transforming Stone Mountain into the world’s largest Confederate memorial and celebration of American white supremacy.

“Stone Mountain allows for a full century’s worth of reckoning with the motivations and politics behind these celebrations of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause narrative,” says Sierra Pettengill, director of the film, Graven Image. “In my film, a voiceover from a 1972 Stone Mountain promotional film says, ‘Remember how it used to be? It’s still that way for you to enjoy at Stone Mountain Park.’ I want this film to make us remember how it actually used to be.”

Recent conflicts over resurgent white nationalism and its links to Confederate monuments in public spaces have prompted conversations about the role of history in our national identity. These debates are an opportunity to critically examine our historical memory and to reevaluate our cultural symbols, like monuments, as our nation’s values and priorities evolve.

In this lesson, students use the short film Graven Image to explore the meaning and function of monuments, analyze the role collective historical memory plays in shaping our identities, and engage with monuments in their own communities to better understand the power dynamics that shape public spaces.

Because everyone interprets media through the lens of his or her own experience, media literacy analysis is about rich readings rather than specific “right” answers.

These suggested questions are starting points for that type of analysis. They are designed for diverse films and audiences; choose the ones that best meet the needs of your situation. To encourage deeper readings, try using follow-up questions such as, “How do you know?”; “How could you find out?”; “What evidence from the film backs up your answer?”; “What else do you notice?”; or “What else do you want to know?”

Based on NAMLE’s Core Principles of Media Literacy Education in the United States, April 2007 –www.NAMLE.NET/core-principles– Adapted by Faith Rogow, Ph.D.

Across racially segregated St. Louis County, Missouri, thousands of people have been routinely sent to jail because they cannot pay local court fines and fees. The vast majority of those fined are poor and black. In Ferguson and the surrounding municipalities, where police shooting victim Michael Brown was killed, a practice with historical antecedents has become systematic: jailing the impoverished when they are unable to pay fines and fees. In A Debtors’ Prison, Samantha Jenkins and Meredith Walker recount their unfolding court cases in St. Louis County, describing the matrix of controls that has incarcerated them repeatedly for being poor.

Through the stories in A Debtors’ Prison, students will understand how aggressive policing, court fees and monetary sentencing have created a cycle of debt and incarceration in poor communities across the United States. They will compare the circumstances in Missouri municipal courts to the policies and procedures of their local juvenile justice systems and write persuasive essays in the form of letters to their local representatives.

Mayer, Jane.Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Doubleday, 2016.
Why is America living in an age of profound and widening economic inequality? Why have even modest attempts to address climate change been defeated again and again? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? In a riveting and indelible feat of reporting, Jane Mayer illuminates the history of an elite cadre of plutocrats—headed by the Kochs, the Scaifes, the Olins, and the Bradleys—who have bankrolled a systematic plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.

Teachout, Zephyr.Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United. Harvard University Press, 2014.
In 2010, one of the most consequential Court decisions in American political history gave wealthy corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion treated corruption as nothing more than explicit bribery, a narrow conception later echoed by Chief Justice Roberts in deciding McCutcheon v. FEC in 2014. With unlimited spending transforming American politics for the worse, warns Zephyr Teachout, Citizens Unitedand McCutcheon were not just bad law but bad history.

Collins, Ronald K.L. When Money Speaks: The McCutcheon Decision, Campaign Finance Laws, and the First Amendment.Top Five Books, 2014.
On April 2, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits on how much money individuals could contribute to political candidates, parties, and committees. The McCutcheon v. FECdecision fundamentally changes how people (and corporations, thanks to Citizens United) can fund campaigns, opening the floodgates for millions of dollars in new spending, which had been curtailed by campaign finance laws going back to the early 1970s. When Money Speaks is the definitive—and the first—book to explain and dissect the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling in McCutcheon, including analysis of the tumultuous history of campaign finance law in the U.S. and the new legal and political repercussions likely to be felt from the Court’s decision.

Mutch, Robert E.Campaign Finance Reform: What Everybody Needs to Know.Oxford University Press, 2016.
In 2015, well over half of the money contributed to the presidential race came from roughly 350 families. The 100 biggest donors gave as much as 2 million small donors combined. Can we still say we live in a democracy if a few hundred rich families provide a disproportionate shares of campaign funds? Congress and the courts are divided on that question, with conservatives saying yes and liberals saying no. The debate is about the most fundamental of political questions: how we define democracy and how we want our democracy to work.

Shapiro, Bruce. Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America. Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003.
Great investigative journalism is present-tense literature: part detective story, part hellraising. This is the first anthology of its kind, bringing together outstanding (and often otherwise unavailable) practitioners of the muckraking tradition, from the Revolutionary era to the present day. Ranging from mainstream figures like Woodward and Bernstein to legendary iconoclasts such as I. F. Stone and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the dispatches in this collection combine the thrill of the chase after facts with a burning sense of outrage.

Smith, Bradley A. Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform. Princeton University Press, 2001.
At a time when campaign finance reform is widely viewed as synonymous with cleaning up Washington and promoting political equality, Bradley Smith, a nationally recognized expert on campaign finance reform, argues that all restriction on campaign giving should be eliminated. In Unfree Speech, he presents a bold, convincing argument for the repeal of laws that regulate political spending and contributions, contending that they violate the right to free speech and ultimately diminish citizens’ power.

Broder, David S. Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money. Harcourt, 2000.
A new form of government is sweeping across America: the initiative process, available in half the states and hundreds of cities. Where once most state laws were passed by legislatures, now voters decide directly on such explosive issues as drugs, affirmative action, casino gambling, assisted suicide, and human rights. Ostensibly driven by public opinion, the initiative process is, in reality, manipulated by moneyed interests, often funded by out-of-state millionaires pursuing their own agendas. In this highly controversial book David Broder tells how this revolution came about.

Quammen, David.Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly Virus. W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
In 1976 a deadly virus emerged from the Congo forest. As swiftly as it came, it disappeared, leaving no trace. Over the four decades since, Ebola has emerged sporadically, each time to devastating effect. It can kill up to 90 percent of its victims. In between these outbreaks, it is untraceable, hiding deep in the jungle. The search is on to find Ebola’s elusive host animal. And until we find it, Ebola will continue to strike. Acclaimed science writer and explorer David Quammen first came near the virus while he was traveling in the jungles of Gabon, accompanied by local men whose village had been devastated by a recent outbreak. Here he tells the story of Ebola—its past, present, and its unknowable future.

Hatch, Steven.Inferno: A Doctor’s Ebola Story.St. Martin's Press, 2017.
Dr. Steven Hatch, an infectious disease specialist, first came to Liberia in November 2013 to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians he had served with were dead or unable to work, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Inferno is his account of the epidemic that nearly consumed a nation, as well as its deeper origins.

Shah, Sonia.Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond.Sarah Crichton Books, 2016.
Pandemicinterweaves history, original reportage, and personal narrative to explore the origins of contagions, drawing parallels between cholera, one of history’s most deadly and disruptive pandemic-causing pathogens, and the new diseases that stalk humankind today. To reveal how a new pandemic might develop, Sonia Shah tracks each stage of cholera’s dramatic journey, from its emergence in the South Asian hinterlands as a harmless microbe to its rapid dispersal across the nineteenth-century world, all the way to its latest beachhead in Haiti. Along the way she reports on the pathogens now following in cholera’s footsteps, from the MRSA bacterium that besieges her own family to the never-before-seen killers coming out of China’s wet markets, the surgical wards of New Delhi, and the suburban backyards of the East Coast.

Oldstone, Michael B. A.Viruses, Plagues, and History: Past, Present, and Future.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010.
The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. Oldstone begins with smallpox, polio, and measles. Nearly 300 million people were killed by smallpox in this century alone and the author presents a vivid account of the long campaign to eradicate this lethal killer. Oldstone then describes the fascinating viruses that have captured headlines in more recent years: Ebola, Hantavirus, mad cow disease (a frightening illness made worse by government mishandling and secrecy), and, of course, AIDS.

Forna, Aminatta.The Devil That Danced on the Water. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002.
Mohamed Forna was a man of impeccable integrity and enchanting charisma. As Sierra Leone faced its future as a fledgling democracy, he was a new star in the political firmament, a man who had been one of the first black students to come to Britain after the war. He stole the heart of Aminatta’s mother, to the dismay of her Presbyterian parents, and returned with her to Sierra Leone. But as Aminatta Forna shows with compelling clarity, the old Africa was torn apart by new ways of Western parliamentary democracy, which gave birth only to dictatorships and corruption of hitherto undreamed-of magnitude.

Berwin, Mel, Jennifer Sartori and Judith Rosenbaum.Making our Wilderness Bloom: 350 Years of Extraordinary Jewish Women in America.Jewish Women’s Archive, 2004.
Making Our Wilderness Bloom celebrates 350 years of extraordinary Jewish women with biographies, historical context, primary source interviews and photographs. One segment of the book introduces Jewish women who save lives through medicine and health. This represents the Jewish value of pikuach nefesh—“saving a life”—where the preservation of life overrides all other religious considerations.

Biale, David et al.Hasidism: A New History: Princeton University Press, 2017.
This is the first comprehensive history of the pietistic movement that shaped modern Judaism. The book's unique blend of intellectual, religious, and social history offers perspectives on the movement's leaders as well as its followers, and demonstrates that, far from being a throwback to the Middle Ages, Hasidism is a product of modernity that forged its identity as a radical alternative to the secular world.

Fader, Ayala.Mitzvah Girls: Bringing up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn.Princeton University Press, 2009.
Mitzvah Girls is the first book about bringing up Hasidic Jewish girls in North America, providing an in-depth look into a closed community. Ayala Fader examines language, gender, and the body from infancy to adulthood, showing how Hasidic girls in Brooklyn become women responsible for rearing the next generation of nonliberal Jewish believers. To uncover how girls learn the practices of Hasidic Judaism, Fader looks beyond the synagogue to everyday talk in the context of homes, classrooms, and city streets.

Levine, Stephanie Wellen.Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls.New York University Press, 2003.
Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers includes over thirty exclusive interviews with young Hasidic women transitioning from their teenage years to adulthood. While some of the girls are rebels, others strive for higher education and successful careers while remaining rooted in their faith community. The author lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for a year in the Orthodox Jewish Lubavitch community.

Stern, Jane.Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT.Crown Publishing Group, 2003.
Jane Stern began her second career as an emergency medical technician late in life. For years, she had battled panic attacks, depression, and hypochondria. While her plane was grounded at the Minneapolis airport for 6 hours, she was able to help a young man experiencing a health crisis. This small but satisfying act of helping someone else led her to EMT training. Stern shares her on-the-job experiences which often included emotional and physical challenges. Through all of her hard work, Jane eventually becomes the first woman officer of her department.

Zipora, Malka.Rather Laugh Than Cry: Stories from a Hassidic Household.Montreal, Canada: Véhicule Press, 2007.
Rather Laugh than Cry is a glimpse into the daily life of a contemporary Hassidic woman living in a large urban setting. Malka Zipora is the pseudonym of a Montreal Hassidic woman who has raised a family of twelve children who now range in age between nine and thirty years old. Zipora has taken the unusual step of drawing back the curtain on her life as a Hassidic woman, and what she tells us about her everyday life gives us a very human view into a world that seems very much apart from the mainstream.

Berger, Joseph. The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America. HarperCollins, 2014.
As the population of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States increases to astonishing proportions, veteran New York Timesjournalist Joseph Berger takes us inside the notoriously insular world of the Hasidim to explore their origins, beliefs, and struggles— and the social and political implications of their expanding presence in America.

Qiu, Pei Pei.Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Accountability and redress for Imperial Japan's wartime "comfort women" have provoked international debate in the past two decades. Yet there has been a dearth of first-hand accounts available in English from the women abducted and enslaved by the Japanese military in Mainland China -- the major theatre of the Asia-Pacific War. Chinese Comfort Women features the personal stories of the survivors of this devastating system of sexual enslavement. Offering insight into the conditions of these women's lives prior to and after the war, it points to the social, cultural, and political environments that prolonged their suffering.

Soh, Chunghee Sarah.The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
In an era marked by atrocities perpetrated on a grand scale, the tragedy of the so-called comfort women—mostly Korean women forced into prostitution by the Japanese army—endures as one of the darkest events of World War II. These women have usually been labeled victims of a war crime, a simplistic view that makes it easy to pin blame on the policies of imperial Japan and therefore easier to consign the episode to a war-torn past. In this revelatory study, C. Sarah Soh provocatively disputes this master narrative. Soh reveals that the forces of Japanese colonialism and Korean patriarchy together shaped the fate of Korean comfort women—a double bind made strikingly apparent in the cases of women cast into sexual slavery after fleeing abuse at home.

Yoshimi, Yoshiaki.Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During WWII. Columbia University Press, 2000.
Available for the first time in English, this is the definitive account of the practice of sexual slavery the Japanese military perpetrated during World War II by the researcher principally responsible for exposing the Japanese government's responsibility for these atrocities. The large scale imprisonment and rape of thousands of women, who were euphemistically called "comfort women" by the Japanese military, first seized public attention in 1991 when three Korean women filed suit in a Toyko District Court stating that they had been forced into sexual servitude and demanding compensation.

Henson, Maria Rosa.Comfort Woman: a Filipina’s Story of Prostitution and Slavery by the Japanese Military. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1995.
In April 1943, 15-year-old Maria Rosa Henson was taken by Japanese soldiers occupying the Philippines and forced into prostitution as a comfort woman. In this autobiography, Rosa recalls her childhood as the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy landowner, her work for Huk guerrillas, her wartime ordeal, and her marriage to a rebel leader who left her to raise their children alone.

O’Herne, Jan Ruff.Fifty Years of Silence. Sydney: Penguin Random House Australia, 2011.
Jan Ruff O'Herne's idyllic childhood in Dutch colonial Indonesia ended when the Japanese invaded Java in 1942. She was interned in Ambarawa Prison Camp along with her mother and two younger sisters. In February 1944, when Jan was just twenty-one years old, she was taken from the camp and forced into sexual slavery in a military brothel. Jan was repeatedly beaten and raped for a period of three months, after which she was returned to prison camp with threats that her family would be killed if she revealed the truth about the atrocities inflicted upon her. For fifty years, Jan told no one what had happened to her, but in 1992, after seeing Korean war rape victims making appeals for justice on television, she decided to speak out and support them.

Hicks, George L.The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution During the Second World War. W.W. Norton & Co., 1995.
Over 100,000 women across Asia were victims of enforced prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II. Until as recently as 1993 the Japanese government continued to deny this shameful aspect of its wartime history. George Hicks's book is the only history in English regarding this terrible enslavement of women

Across New York City, a bold experiment in participatory democracy is underway. Since 2012, the city council has steadily increased investment in a process called Participatory Budgeting, by which community members help decide how to spend part of a public budget. Through an eight-month process, neighbors come together and work with their government to propose, debate and ultimately vote on budget decisions that affect their lives.

This process, developed in Brazil in 1989, now takes place in 1,500 cities worldwide. In each location, PB brings together diverse communities to grapple with big questions at the center of urban development, while creating an opportunity for community members to transform the way they see their neighborhood, their neighbors and themselves.

Public Money delves into New York City’s PB process, the largest in the U.S., involving more than 100,000 people deciding how to spend over $35 million each year. Following the process over one year in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park—a multicultural neighborhood undergoing gentrification—this quietly observed, verité documentary asks, what happens when community members come together to discuss and decide what development should look like in their neighborhood?

Through the film Public Money, students will be introduced to the Participatory Budgeting (PB) model and how this has process provided the residents of Sunset Park, Brooklyn with a voice in local government. Students will then translate the PB process to their own school and develop an Action Plan and Budget proposal that will address an issue in their community. Students will summarize and present their proposals to students and school administration in the form of an Elevator Pitch.

In this lesson students will learn the history of an often-overlooked part of World War II - the girls and women forced into military sexual slavery under the occupation of the Japanese army. In The Apology, three of the surviving women, nicknamed “the Grandmas,” Adela Barroquillo from the Philippines, Cao Hei Mao from China and Gil Won-Ok from South Korea, relate their experiences as young girls during the war and reflect on the scars this violence left on their entire lives.

Sexual violence and rape during war is not unique to World War II, nor are women and girls the only victims. Governments and the military use rape as a weapon of war to dehumanize and humiliate populations, exert their power and damage communities for generations.

For over 70 years these women, euphemistically called “comfort women,” have carried the weight of shame, trauma and fear of rejection. Many did not speak about what they had experienced. They were sometimes pressured into silence by their communities, who regarded the women as shameful or even blamed them for what occurred. It has taken decades for their stories to emerge, but as Director Tiffany Hsiung of The Apologysays, “They still need us to listen and respond.” Learning to listen deeply to and acknowledge the stories of survivors is a form of justice. This lesson uses first-hand testimonies to understand the consequences of war through the eyes of women who are sharing their stories as an act of healing, a form of resistance and an attempt at historical reconciliation.

Note to Educators:The Apologyis a documentary film about women’s experience of sexual violence and rape during war. While the focus on the lesson revolves around what we can learn from their stories and how it can inspire change, students are asked to be active listeners as the women share traumatic memories. Setting the historical and emotional context for this lesson and creating a safe space within your classroom to discuss this topic is critical. It is expected that this lesson would be integrated only within courses where students have been prepared to encounter this history and have the maturity with which to share and process the information.

In the Resource section of this lesson you will find several recommended organizations and materials to use as you prepare to approach this topic with students.

In 2009, a trip to Asia would change my life forever. That’s when I first met “the grandmothers.” Prior to that trip I knew very little about the atrocities that occurred during World War II in Asia—specifically, the institutionalized sexual slavery system that held captive more than 200,000 girls and young women. When I asked the elders in my family to tell me stories about the past, what it was like during the war, they would shake their heads slowly and somberly say, “没有什么好说的, 不好听 (Mei yoa shimo hao shio de bu hao tin)” which means, “There’s nothing good to say, nothing good to hear.” And that was the end of my history lesson.

As a “CBC” (Canadian Born Chinese), I often felt conflicted culturally. The North American approach is to speak out against injustice, while the Chinese way of dealing with hardship is to “吃苦 (chi ku)” which literally translates to “swallow the bitterness.” And of course, one must always “save face” to preserve pride and honor. I was first confronted with this dilemma at 8 years old, after being sexually assaulted at home by a so-called family friend. I was paralyzed by the choices I could make, but either way, I felt that my world had already been shattered. I chose the temporary comfort and safety of keeping silent and, like the women of generations before me, I just learned to swallow the bitterness.

Fast-forward 17 years, when I would meet the remarkable women in my film The Apology. History refers to them as “comfort women”—a term used by the Imperial Japanese Army to describe the girls and women they forced into sexual slavery. But to me, they are the grandmothers. What started off as a journey to uncover this dark history of human atrocities soon turned into an exploration of perseverance.

When Korean survivor Kim Hak-sun first spoke out publicly in 1991, nearly five decades after the end of World War II, she set off a domino effect. Other women in their respective countries started to speak out, too, and the world would hear testimony after testimony from hundreds of women describing unimaginable crimes against them with the hope that justice would soon follow. Twenty-seven years later, their fight still continues.

After the first few years of spending time with Grandma Cao in China, Grandma Gil in Korea and Grandma Adela in the Philippines, it was clear that there was more to this chapter in history, more than just the sexual slavery, more to these women that people weren’t seeing. I came to learn about their lives after the war and how they survived. The grandmothers had incredible resilience, made tremendous sacrifices and ultimately displayed the true power of the human spirit.

Over the course of six years, each of the communities that we filmed demonstrated the importance of camaraderie. Knowing that you aren’t alone and that you will be supported after disclosing your past can make the difference between speaking out versus living the rest of your life in silence and carrying the burden and pain of what you experienced as a victim. Society has perpetuated a culture of shame that has resulted in decades, or even lifetimes of silence for survivors of sexual violence.

These days the Me Too and Time’s Up movements are sparking a global dialogue that de-stigmatizes and reframes what it means to be a victim of sexual violence. The grandmothers have taught me that although my past does not define me, the journey to come to terms with my past makes me who I am today. Discovering why I wanted to make this film was extremely difficult, because I thought it was a story I wanted to tell, when, in fact, it became a story I always needed to tell. It’s a story for the 8-year-old girl within me that struggled to tell her own family about the abuse. It’s a story for all the courageous grandmothers who survived months and years of sexual slavery. It’s a story for all the survivors who never had the space to be known outside the ugly crimes committed against them. It’s a story that brings to light the millions of untold stories of sexual violence that continue to go unheard.

Tiffany Hsiung

Director, The Apology

In this lesson, students will examine a case study about how corporate donations to American political campaigns influence elections. Students will use film clips from the documentary Dark Money to learn how donations where the donor is undisclosed are used to finance political campaigns and how investigative journalism revealed the harm of this type of political spending in Montana. Students will increase their critical media analysis skills, their knowledge of campaign finance and their understanding of why an informed citizenry is necessary to a strong democracy. Students will apply what they learn to an election in their own community and gain a deeper understanding of how campaigns are funded and how money may influence elected representatives in local, state or federal office.

Note to Educators:Dark Moneyis an accessible yet complex story of campaign finance and corruption that touches on many critical issues, from the First Amendment to the Citizens United decision. This lesson focuses on strengthening media literacy to increase understanding of free and fair elections. See the Extensions/Adaptations section for resources related to other key issues raised by the film.

In this lesson students will explore key concepts in public health, such as the definitions of “epidemic” and “intervention” and criteria for national and international emergencies. Using the film Survivors,students will learn about the science of the Ebola virus, including the symptoms of the disease and how it is spread. Finally, the class will examine local, national and international responses to the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone and neighboring countries, and what those responses revealed about strengths and gaps in global public health policy.

Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmaker Arthur Pratt, Survivors presents an intimate portrait of Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the sociopolitical turmoil that lies in its wake. Survivorsreveals the bureaucratic missteps that took place during one of the most acute public health crises of the modern era, as well as remarkable stories of individual bravery and the deep humanity of those caught in the middle of this unfolding crisis.

Note to Teachers:The film clips from Survivorsportray very sick and dying patients, as well as people grieving for loved ones killed by the disease. This content may be upsetting to some students.

POV offers a lending library of DVDs that you can borrow anytime during the school year—FOR FREE! Get started by joining the POV Community Network. Survivorsis a co-production of American Documentary | POV and ITVS.