All Power to the People is a 1996 documentary by Lee Lew-Lee about American race relations and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement

Civil rights movement

The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

 and covers slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, civil-rights activists, assassinations in the '60s, and it explores methods used to divide and destroy key figures. It moves beyond that era into covering Reagan-Era events, privacy

Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...

 threats from new technologies, and the failure of the War on Drugs

War on Drugs

The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...

. It is composed primarily of archival footage and interviews. Interviewees include ex-CIA officer Philip Agee

Philip Agee

Philip Burnett Franklin Agee was a Central Intelligence Agency case officer and writer, best known as author of the 1975 book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, detailing his experiences in the CIA. Agee joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador,...

, Life magazine journalist/filmmaker Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was a groundbreaking American photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist and film director...

, decorated FBI Special Agent M. Wesley Swearingen

M. Wesley Swearingen

M. Wesley Swearingen is a former FBI Special Agent from 1951 to 1977, and the author of FBI Secrets, and To Kill a President, an examination of the John F. Kennedy assassination.-Biography:...

, and various '60s political radicals such as Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...

 and Martin Luther King. It covers both the virtues and faults of these civil rights leaders and activists.

Broadcast in 24 countries on 12 networks in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia & Australia between 1997-2000.

Awards

• Best Historical Documentary, National Black Programming Consortium (ITVS/PBS) 1998
• Black Filmworks Award, Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame 1998
• Best Director, 2nd pl, Gordon Parks Award (MTV/ IFP) 1998
• Critic's Award, Southern Film Festival 1999
• Paul Robeson Award for Excellence in Independent Filmmaking, The Newark Film Festival (Mobil Oil / Newark Museum) 1997
• Robert Townsend Tenacity Award, Roy W. Dean Awards, 1997
• Paul Robeson Grant Award, Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, 1997
• The Windy City International Documentary Festival (Columbia College, Chicaago), 1997
• The Grand Prize, Roy W. Dean Awards, 1995