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Welcome to RIOTSVILLE, USA, a turning point in American history where the protest movements of the late 1960s came into conflict with increasingly militarized police departments. Focusing on unearthed military training footage of Army-built model towns called “Riotsvilles,” where military and police were trained to respond to civil disorder in the aftermath of the Kerner Commission created by President Lyndon B. Johnson, director Sierra Pettengill’s kaleidoscopic all-archival documentary reconstructs the formation of a national consciousness obsessed with maintaining law and order by any means necessary. Drawing insight from a time similar to our own, RIOTSVILLE, USA pulls focus on American institutional control and offers a compelling case that if the history of race in America rhymes, it is by design.
Original Release
09/16/2022
US Release
09/16/2022
Links
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Charlene Modeste | Narrator / Voiceover |
Lyndon B. Johnson | Self |
Otto Kerner | Self - Chairman |
Edward P. Morgan | Self - PBL Chief Correspondent |
Robert Curvin | Self - Former Chairman, Neward CORE |
Leonard Kowalewski | Self - Newark Police |
John Harrington | Self - Fraternal Order of Police |
Albert Cleage | Self |
Alvin F. Poussaint | Self - Tufts University |
Fred Harris | Self - Commission Member |
Directors
Writers
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Charlene Modeste | Narrator / Voiceover |
Lyndon B. Johnson | Self |
Otto Kerner | Self - Chairman |
Edward P. Morgan | Self - PBL Chief Correspondent |
Robert Curvin | Self - Former Chairman, Neward CORE |
Leonard Kowalewski | Self - Newark Police |
John Harrington | Self - Fraternal Order of Police |
Albert Cleage | Self |
Alvin F. Poussaint | Self - Tufts University |
Fred Harris | Self - Commission Member |
Dick Gregory | Self |
Roger Mudd | Self |
Robert Byrd | Self |
Jimmy Collier | Self |
Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick | Self |
Ronald Reagan | Self |
Spiro Agnew | Self |
Strom Thurmond | Self |
Theodore Gibson | Self |
Producers
Name | Role |
---|
Michael Y. Chow | Executive Producer |
Charlotte Cook | Executive Producer |
Grace Lay | Executive Producer |
Sue Turley | Executive Producer |
Sumalee Montano | Executive Producer |
Sara Archambault | Producer |
Liz Yong Lowe | Producer |
Jonathan Rapoport | Producer |
Jamila Wignot | Producer |