Film on Mass Jailing, Race to Be Screened

The Academy Award-nominated documentary "13th," a historically rich and powerful indictment of mass incarceration of African-Americans in the United States, will be screened at a Community Forum in Newbury Park at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 3.

The movie, named after the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery, was directed by Ava DuVernay, who also helmed the acclaimed 2014 drama "Selma." The documentary makes the point that the 13th Amendment did not completely outlaw slavery; it allowed involuntary servitude "as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

In the post-Civil War South, that led to a system of convict leasing where freed slaves were arrested for minor offenses like vagrancy and loitering and sent to work at plantations, mines and other facilities where they were housed, fed and under the control of private enterprises.

The film moves through decades of suppression of African-Americans through disenfranchising, Jim Crow laws and a war on drugs that brought mass incarceration of people of color. The 2016 documentary opens with President Barack Obama saying that the United States has 5 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its prisoners. The film examines for-profit private prisons and police shootings that sparked Black Lives Matter protests.

New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis wrote, "Powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming, Ava DuVernay's documentary "13th" will get your blood boiling and tear ducts leaking."

The screening at the Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 3327 Old Conejo Road, will be followed by a discussion. It is open to the public and free; donations are welcome. For information, visit forum.cvuuf.org or contact Dana Ryon through the church office at (805) 498-9548.