Princeton Public Library presents Ruha Benjamin, assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, who will lead a post-screening discussion of Ava DuVernay’s documentary “13th.”  Film and discussion will take place on Thursday,January 5, 2017, 6:00 pm8:30 pm.

The title of the film refers to the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution which outlawed slavery (unless as a punishment for a crime).  The film tracks the criminalization of African Americans from the end of the Civil War to the present day, assailing a broken prison system and other examples of institutionalized racial bias with a measured gaze. Combining the rage of Black Lives Matter and the cool intelligence of a focused dissertation, DuVernay folds many historical details into an infuriating arrangement of statistics and cogent explanations for the evolution of racial bias in the United States. Running time is 1 hour, 40 minutes.