13th, on Netflix
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This documentary, directed by Ava DuVernay, was released in 2016, but I didn't see it until 2025. The title refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which in 1865 abolished slavery... except as a punishment for criminals. Ever since the end of slavery, that exception has been used, up to the present, to continue slavery and persecution in a new form. The film does an excellent- and devastating- job of exploring the racial history of the United States, after slavery was (sort of) abolished. It involves commentary from many people who have experience with the subject matter both personal and academic, as well as lots of archival footage.

It begins with recently freed Black people being criminalized for minor offenses, and used as involuntary labor, starting immediately after the Civil War. The 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation" further cemented white Americans' perception of Black people as inherently criminalistic, and led to a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. Jim Crow laws furthered segregation, and lynching became widespread. After the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, President Nixon initiated a war on drugs that was designed to primarily harm People of Color, and the war was intensified by President Reagan in the 1980s. The war on crime in general intensified under President Clinton, and corporations began to have greater impact on federal legislation. The situation became even worse with the ascendance of for-profit prisons, which continued to increase mass incarceration and led to harsher sentences for Black people than for white people convicted of the same crimes. Police were incentivized to arrest more people, to fill the prisons and maintain their profitability. The film also explores police violence against Black people, including killing people with impunity. The system became so over flooded with arrests on minor offenses, as well as false arrests, that it became impossible for everyone to receive a trial. This led to the vast majority of innocent people pleading guilty just to avoid potentially life-long sentences. And even those to refused to plead guilty could stay in jail for years awaiting a trial, and be treated brutally by guards. Moreover, throughout all of these developments over the decades, the public was indoctrinated to fear violent crime (and to associate People of Color with criminality), and shun anyone who had ever been convicted of a crime, making it much harder for ex convicts to reintegrate into society after their release. All this led up to the Black Lives Matter movement. And still, politicians such as Donald Trump used fear and racism to appeal to voters. And the film touches on how phones with cameras brought new light to injustices that had been going on forever. As the film comes to an end, the question is raised of what will be the next iteration of disenfranchisement for People of Color.

Well, I've included a lot of the major points of the film, though I've also left out many details. The whole thing is very powerful and heartbreaking, and often infuriating. And of course there's much more to be said about the history of race relations in the United States than could possibly be covered by a 100 minute documentary. But I think this is at the very least a good starting point, for the uninitiated. (I would expect it's also good for anyone who's already studied such history.)