As we prepare for Black History Month, new releases look back at the complex heroes who powered the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By DENNIS HARVEY<\/a> (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n -JANUARY 14, 2021Dr. Martin Luther King in Sam Pollard\u2019s \u2018MLK\/FBI\u2019. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The start of Black History Month may still be a couple weeks away, but needless to say there\u2019s plenty of reason to get a little ahead of ourselves in that regard, as recent years have in many respects seen the clock turned back on US race relations half a century or more. The civil rights movement certainly did create sweeping changes in American society, but as with so many other social shifts that kicked into overdrive in the 1960s, it\u2019s a mercy its proponents couldn\u2019t foresee the degree of reactionary pushback the then-distant future would bring. Weren\u2019t we supposed to be living in 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em>? Instead, post-millennium \u2018Murrica keeps evolving towards something more like \u2026 The Purge<\/em>? Network<\/em>? Get Out<\/em>? Idiocracy<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n In any case, two new films releasing this Friday cast an instructive look back at major figures and events of the civil rights struggle that, needless to say, have as much relevance as ever these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually arriving right on time (this being the long weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day) is MLK\/FBI<\/strong>, which is available now On Demand. This fascinating documentary by Sam Pollard, whose Mr. Soul!<\/em> was also recently covered in this column<\/a>, delivers exactly what the title promises: A chronicle of how our government\u2019s primary domestic law enforcement agency monitored the activities of the era\u2019s most prominent racial justice activist for years before his 1968 assassination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n