Video Library

We encourage you to take advantage of our great collection of diversity resources. All Diversity Council videos are available to Olmsted County residents for checking out with a $25 deposit.

Children & Youth

All Together (29 min)

Renowned ventriloquist Jonathan Geffner brings his friends for a lively celebration of diversity. Along with Jonathan’s whimsical puppet partners, kids will learn about respect, cooperation, conflict resolution, and much more.

How We're Different and Alike (10 min)

Featuring lively music and colorful animation, this program talks about how and why people are different, and how even people who look different share many similarities.

Oliver Button is a Star (56 min)

Tomie DePaola's classic children's book is retold in this musical about a boy who is ridiculed because he'd rather sing and dance than play sports like 'normal boys.'

Prejudice: The Monster Within (30 min)

From subtle comments to vicious attacks, prejudice is one of the oldest and most dangerous problems our world faces. This film weaves youth interviews with examples of prejudice from slavery to the civil war in Bosnia in order to help each one of us arrive at solutions for combating the “monster within.” 

Adjusting to Classmates from Other Cultures (16 min)

The Respect Series

• "I Was Just Kidding" (16 min)
• "You're Right and So Am I" (16 min)
• "Uncommon Courtesy" (16 min)

Adult

Multicultural People of North America

This series explores the history and culture of various immigrant groups in the United States and illustrates how all immigrants except African Americans came to this country for common reasons.

• Polish
• Mexican
• Italian
• Jewish
• Irish
• Japanese
• Arab
• Puerto Rican
• Central Americans
• German
• Korean
• Greek
• Amish
• African American
• Chinese

Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes (1 hr. 32 min)

The definitive documentary on Jane Elliot's famous classroom experiment in which students are discriminated against based on eye color.

A Class Divided (56 min)

Condensed story of Jane Elliot's famous classroom experiment in which students are discriminated against based on eye color. Students who participated in the experiment reunite to discuss how it affected them.

The Essential Blue-Eyed (30 min)

Edited version of Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes

Eyes on the Prize (50 min)

The Teaching Tolerance series documentary on the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965.

A Time for Justice: America's Civil Rights Movements (38 min)

This film from the Teaching Tolerance series depicts the battle for civil rights as told by its foot soldiers, who stood their ground until they won their freedom.

Mighty Times (47 min)

The Teaching Tolerance series documentary on the legacy of Rosa Parks.

Mighty Times: The Children's March (40 min)

The Teaching Tolerance series documentary on the children who marched for Civil Rights.

A Place at the Table (40 min)

The Teaching Tolerance series looks at history and identity through the eyes of today's youth.

Blacks & Jews (85 min)

This documentary goes behind the volatile faultline between blacks and Jews to probe the roots of distrust and discrimination.  More than simply a study of a specific ethnic conflict, this film offers everyone concerned about diversity a primer on how dialogue breaks down – and what it will take to open it again.

Freedom Writers (15 min)

When a racial incident occurred in her classroom, 23-year-old English teacher Erin Gruwell spun it into an ongoing dialogue that ultimately changed the lives of 150 inner-city students.  ABC News correspondent Connie Chung documents the story of the group as they confront hatred through writing.

True Colors (17 min)

ABC's Prime Time tests racism in St. Louis by sending out a black man and a white man to shop, look for an apartment, apply for a job, buy a car, and hail a cab.

The Color of Fear (1 hr. 30 min)

This award winning documentary by Lee Mun Wah follows 8 men of various races as they are thrown together on a weekend retreat and discover each other's fears.

Last Chance for Eden (88 min)

Award-winning director Lee Mun Wah presents a film about nine men and women in an honest and emotionally charged conversation about how racism and sexism have affected their lives and families.

Matters of Race (4 parts, 60 min each)

• Part 1: The Divide. Power and identity in small town America
• Part 2: Race Is, Race Isn't. The black/white paradigm in multiracial America
• Part 3: We're Still Here. American Indians and Native Hawaiians
• Part 4: Tomorrow's America. Race and youth culture

No Shortcuts: Challenging Cultural Bias when Working with People

• Multicultural
• African American
• Asian-Pacific
• Chicano/Latino
• Native American

Not in Our Town

A documentary on the grassroots response to racism and hate crime that started in one small town and spread across the nation. Rochester began a Not in Our Town campaign in the 90's.

Wealth, Innovation & Diversity (31 min)

Futurist Joel Barker discusses how diversity is necessary for innovation and the creation of new wealth.

The New Americans (115 min, 115 min; 170 min)

This 3-part series follows the lives of recent immigrants as they follow the American Dream.

Race: The Power of an Illusion (3 parts, 56 min each)

This powerful three-part series uses the science of genetics to demythologize race and explores race as a sociological construct.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

Dr. Ruby Payne's groundbreaking 6-part series on the culture of poverty.

Crash (122 min)

This compelling urban movie tracks the volatile intersection of a multi-ethnic cast of characters struggling to overcome their fears as they careen in and out of one another's lives. (DVD)

Living Together: A History of Prejudice in Olmsted County (19 min)

Produced by the Diversity Council.

Viva La Difference (13 min)

Rochester students talk about first impressions and how they are not always correct or fair.

Featured Video

Race: The Power of an Illusion

This documentary challenges one of our most fundamental beliefs: that humans come divided into distinct biological groups. This definitive three-part series is an eye-opening tale of how what we assume to be normal, commonsense, even scientific, is actually shaped by our history, social institutions and cultural beliefs.

Part 1: The Difference Between Us

Everyone can tell a Norwegian from a Nubian, so why doesn't it make sense to sort people into biological races? Examine the contemporary science - including genetics - that challenges our assumptions about human groups.

Episode 2: The Story We Tell

Hasn't race always been with us? Explore the roots of the race concept, including the 19th century science that justified it, and how it gained such a hold over our minds.

Episode 3: The House We Live In

Race may be a biological myth, but racism gives different groups vastly different life chances. Forty years after the Civil Rights Movement, the playing field is still not level, and "colorblind" policies only perpetuate inequality.

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Diversity...It's all about respect.