Dr Ibram X Kendi first published Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America in 2016 and it’s since had many forms, though this 92-minute film might be the most heart-poundingly persuasive yet. Alongside Ava DuVernay’s Academy Award-winning 13th and Elvis Mitchell’s delightfully idiosyncratic Is That Black Enough for You?!? it also solidifies Netflix’s reputation as a home for worthwhile Black history documentaries.
The film’s particular innovation is to privilege Black women’s perspectives on the history of American racism, and with the exception of Kendi himself, every expert commentator here is a Black woman. It’s an undeniable coup to have legendary movement leader Angela Davis included, though she doesn’t say much. More memorable are contributions from dynamic police reform campaigner Brittany Packnett Cunningham and poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, who can utilise even her vocal intonation to make defiant comment on the intersection of race, class and gender.
This female spin enlivens otherwise familiar themes via the stories of previously overlooked figures. Instead of Frederick Douglass, we go deep on enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley. Instead of WEB Du Bois, we hear about his NAACP contemporary Ida B Wells. And while Public Enemy’s Fight the Power gets an inevitable needle drop, Little Simz’s Introvert sounds more powerful still.
Good music is one reason why this film is able to gallop at such a pace across huge swathes of racial thinking. Any time the theory gets too dense, our attention is grabbed by a rhythmically edited montage of pop culture provocation – Confederate flag bikinis, laughing mammies, jerry-curled crack-smokers – then retained with animations by LA’s Awesome + Modest, which bring historical episodes to life with infinitely more swag than the usual staid dramatic re-enactments.
Most impressively, throughout all this revelry and rousing oratory, director Roger Ross Williams keeps hold of the thread connecting a senator’s 1860 speech to viral TikToks of cop-calling white women in 2020. Will the US ever arrive at a point where “existing while Black” is not considered a crime? The beginning is chronicled here, but the end still feels a long way off.
• Stamped from the Beginning is released on 10 November in UK cinemas and on 20 November on Netflix.
