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Power to Heal: Medicare and the Civil Rights Revolution

Power To Heal: Medicare and the Civil Rights Revolution tells the story of an historic yet little known struggle to secure equal and adequate access to health care for all Americans. The film reveals how the federal government, with crucial support from medical professionals and civil rights activists, leveraged Medicare funding to bring down the Jim Crow hospital system. Narrated by Danny Glover, it begins as black doctors’ efforts to end racial discrimination clash with the federally funded postwar expansion of segregated hospitals. By the early 1960s, the height of the Civil Rights Movement, African American doctors and dentists have mounted legal and legislative challenges to hospital segregation and organized a Medical Civil Rights Movement that demands that the federal government take action. When Medicare passes just a year after the Civil Rights Act, it presents a golden opportunity. With just a few months to desegregate the hospitals, the federal government recruits an army of hospital inspectors. Chased by the Klan and followed by local police, and working closely with civil rights activists, the inspectors fan out across the nation in a race against time for health and human rights.

  • Charles Burnett
    Director
    To Sleept with Anger; Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property; Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation; Warming by the Devil's Fire; The Glass Shield,
  • Daniel Loewenthal
    Director
    Good Friday; Voices in Wartime
  • Anna Reid Jhirad
    Writer
    Rediscovering Kate Carew, Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening
  • Barbara Berney
    Producer
  • Roberta Friedman
    Producer
  • Danny Glover
    Key Cast
    "Narrator"
    Lethal Weapon; To Sleep with Anger; Cold Case Files; Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Television
  • Runtime:
    56 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 21, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    730,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    2K
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Baltimore International Black Film Festival
    Baltimore, MD
    United States
    October 4, 2018
    Official Selection
  • Port Townsend Film Festival
    Port Townsend, Washington
    United States
  • Route 66 Film Festival

    November 3, 2018
    Hugh Moore Best of Festival
  • Roxbury International Film Festival
    Roxbury, MA
    United States
    June 27, 2019
    Official Selection
  • Pan African Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    February 10, 2019
    Board of Directors' Short Documentary Award.
  • Black Maria Film Festival
    Savannah, GA
    United States
    April 23, 2019
    Director's Choice Award
  • Ogeechee International History Film Festival
    Statesboro, GA
    United States
    February 22, 2019
    Best Short Film
Distribution Information
  • Bullfrog Films
Director Biography - Charles Burnett, Daniel Loewenthal

Charles Burnett, considered one of America's greatest filmmakers, was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1944. He was one of the few blacks who had access to college education in the 1960s, and he studied at UCLA's Film Department. He was first noticed in 1981 with Killer of Sheep which won a prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Burnett's film The Glass Shield, a tense rapid-fire police drama on the corruption and racism that plagues the Los Angeles Police Department, was shown in competition at Locarno.

Daniel Loewenthal is an accomplished director for short films and features. He most recently produced the feature film Good Friday, and edited the feature film Lost Cat Corona.

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Director Statement

We believe very strongly in the subject of our documentary, The Power to Heal. The story is a part of America’s history that few people know about. While many are somewhat familiar with the Civil Rights Movement and the horror story of segregation, few are aware of the unforgivable acts of racism that targeted health care.

Power to Heal shows how the federal government stepped in and used federal money, namely Medicare, to force hospitals across the nation to accept integration, resulting in a transformation in the treatment of all patients, no matter who they were. This untold side of the Civil Rights struggle is one of the most important events in America history, focusing on unsung heroes who literally risked their lives to insure that people of all races would get equal hospital care, making some of the most profound and long-lasting changes in America.

Charles Burnett