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Marlon Riggs's final film debates Black identity, white critiques, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, colorism and cultural nationalism.

A landmark and controversial personal documentary essay on experiences of black gay men and the search for identity. It has been critically acclaimed as one of the most important documentaries of the 20th century.

Scholars shed light on the origins and consequences of anti-Black stereotypes in popular culture from the Antebellum period to the Civil Rights era.

Marlon Riggs' study of how network television absorbed deep-seated racial conflict into the non-threatening formats of primetime television. Clips from Amos 'n' Andy, Good Times, Roots and The Cosby Show among others are intercut with interviews with producers, cultural critics and actors.

A compilation of three works by pioneering filmmaker Marlon Riggs addressing issues of black gay male identity and confronting HIV/AIDS.

The life of filmmaker Marlon Riggs

From 1860 to 1920 hundreds of US counties expelled all of their African American inhabitants. Banished visits three of these still all white towns today. Meanwhile the descendants of those displaced and disinherited seek redress.

Documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period.

Images, instrumental music, song, interviews and narrative provide clues in the search for a lost song, its history, and its argument for cultural retention between aspects of African and African-American culture.

Over the decades, Nat Turner's slave rebellion has been represented in multiple and often conflicting ways. The film deftly weaves documentary with dramatizations of the different versions of the retelling of this watershed event.

Part 1 of this 3-part series examines the contemporary science - including genetics - that challenges our common sense assumptions that human beings can be bundled into three or four fundamentally different groups according to their physical traits.

A reconstruction of the first influential slave narrative, the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, which helped raise the conscience of Europe and America against slavery, includes commentary by scholars explaining the wider context of the Triangular Trade.

One family's painful confrontation with their ancestor's involvement with the slave trade.

An exploration of post-WWI racial expulsions and their lasting  impact on the historically  all-white town of Corbin, Kentucky, birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Includes interviews with residents and archival material.

Four leading African American writers, Wesley Brown, Thulani Davis, Toni Cade Bambara and Amiri Baraka, lead us through Du Bois's life and work and describe his impact on their work.

This is the first ever documentary on the life and work of author and activist Lorraine Hansberry whose classic play, A Raisin in the Sun influenced the representation of African Americans and changed the American theater forever.

This documentary tells the timely and inspiring story of how successful protests for equity and inclusion led to establishing the first Black and Ethnic Studies departments at two very different universities, San Francisco State (1968) and Cornell (1969).

A biography of the labor, activist and pioneer civil rights leader who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, led the fight to desegregate the military and defense industries, and planted the seeds for the 1963 March on Washington.

During two eventful months in 1968, what began as a local labor dispute between striking African American sanitation workers and the white power structure of Memphis grew into the devastating tragedy of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a national struggle for racial and economic justice. It marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement

BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez offers unprecedented access to the life, work and mesmerizing performances of renowned poet, educator and activist Sonia Sanchez who describes herself as “a woman with razor blades between my teeth.”

Two films: Historic interviews with Black Panther Party leaders, and primary source document of the San Francisco State student strike.

Archival footage and interviews trace the history of African American newspapers and journalism from the Antebellum period to the Civil Rights Movement.

On November 20, 2013, Bayard Rustin was posthumously awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Who was this man? Bayard Rustin is best remembered as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States. His activism for peace, racial equality, economic justice and human rights, and how he navigated through his life and career as an openly gay man are the themes of this portrait.

uncovers the largely unknown and pivotal role played by Black landowning families in the deep South who controlled over a million acres in the 1960s.

In one remarkable day, four college freshmen changed the course of American history. February One tells the inspiring story surrounding the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins that revitalized the Civil Rights Movement and set an example for student militancy of the coming decade.

The migration of African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North and West during and after World War II is retold through personal stories of a group of Chicagoans born in the Mississippi Delta.

The rural roots of African American life are explored through the Black farmer's story from Reconstruction through the agricultural crisis of the '20s and '30s and, eventually, to the system of federal farm loans and subsidies on which all farmers depend today.

Documents the first battle to implement the Brown vs. Board of Education school desegregation decision fought in the small, rural town of Hoxie, Arkansas.

Summer, 1964: Violence erupted on a hot July night in Rochester, New York. July '64 tells the story of an unrest that altered the course of history in Rochester, and predicted urban unrest throughout the American North.

The story of the organizing of the first black trade union - The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters - provides an account of African American working life between the Civil War and World War II.

Negroes with Guns is the story of a forgotten Civil Rights fighter who dared to advocate armed self-defense in the face of racist terrorism of the Jim Crow South. This remarkable film tells of the life and times of Robert F. Williams, the forefather of the Black Power movement, who broke dramatic new ground by internationalizing the African American struggle.

The story of the 1939 Missouri sharecroppers strike reveals the complex issues of cotton farming in the early 1930s and what it was like to be a sharecropper in that time.

This classic case study in media bias examines how the three network affiliates covered urban unrest in Miami's predominantly African American Liberty Hill neighborhood, following the 1980 acquittal of police officers for the killing of a local resident; how it framed the uprising as "riots," chose the community's "spokespersons" and focused on the inconvenience to white commuters.

Ralph Bunche was a statesman, peace negotiator, and the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Bunche overcame racial prejudice and poverty in America to become Undersecretary General of the United Nations.

An introduction to the complex author of Invisible Man including the first-ever dramatized scenes from that book.

An illuminating account of events too often relegated to footnotes in U.S. history - the Black urban rebellions of the 1960's. Focusing on the six-day Newark, N.J. outbreak on July 12, 1967, the film reveals how the disturbance began as spontaneous revolts against poverty and police brutality and ended as fateful milestones in America's struggles over race and economic justice.

A biography of Richard Wright, author of Black Boy and Native Son, from his impoverished childhood, involvement in left-wing politics and literary relationships, to his exile and death in Paris.

The history of segregation sanctioned by the 1898 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, and the visionary legal campaign against it that led to the triumph of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Scarred Justice brings to light one of the bloodiest tragedies of the Civil Rights era after four decades of deliberate denial.

Soul of Justice is a story of race, justice and judgment - both personal and legal. It is the story of the conflicts and contradictions faced by a Black judge working in the nearly all-white world of American jurisprudence.

The story behind Billie Holiday's signature song examines the history of lynching, and the interplay of race, labor and the left, and popular culture as forces that would give rise to the Civil Rights Movement.

Interviews with civil rights activists involved in the peaceful integration of Houston, Texas, and news footage document the behind-the-scenes story.

This film documents the history of the leading figures, institutions and events that transformed the American stage in the wake of Civil Rights activism. It includes interviews with Ossie Davis, Amiri Baraka, James Earl Jones and Ntozake Shange, and clips from many landmark plays.

Explores tensions surrounding white participation in Hip-Hop. For some, it is an example of cultural progress. For others, it is just another case of cultural appropriation.

A literary biography of a seminal figure of 20th century American literature, Margaret Walker, who established one of the first Black Studies centers in the nation, and mentored the Black Arts movement of the 1960s.

Homegoings takes an up-close look at the rarely seen world of undertaking in the black community, where funeral rites draw on a rich palette of tradition, history and celebration. It reveals the special status of undertakers in the community; borne out of their permanence, their economic stability, and the necessities of the segregation period. It film paints a portrait of the dearly departed, their grieving families and a man who sends loved ones "home."

This cine-poetic experience celebrates the spirit and work of Harlem's poet laureate Langston Hughes. Contemporary writers, slam poets and arts supporters star.

An introduction to six distinguished African American writers - Charles Johnson, Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, John Wideman and August Wilson.

Film biography of the life of James Baldwin includes excerpts from his work . Writers Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed and William Styron discuss Baldwin's influence.

A lively exploration of the historical and cultural context of Stepping, an energetic communal dance form sweeping college campuses. Young teams of dancers creatively add hip-hop movements to a tradition dating back to the early 20th century.

A valuable and colorful examination of 40 years of changing representations of Black masculinity in a significant area of popular culture - comic books. This genre's reach and impact extended into other forms of cultural production such as movies and animated TV series.

The lives, times and music of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Ethel Waters and other legendary women illustrate how the blues became a vital part of American culture.

This Academy Award-winning documentary explores issues facing elders who raise their grandchildren. Big Mama, 90, takes on Walter, 9, after convincing welfare officials that "age has nothing to do with love."

Scholars and critics probe the history and psychology of victimization shared between Blacks and Jews and their exploitation by the media.

Brick by Brick Tracks the landmark case, U.S. vs Yonkers, which challenged housing and educational discrimination in the North and pushed for desegregation.

A compelling examination of the career of Melville J. Herskovits, the pioneering American anthropologist of African Studies and controversial intellectual who established the first African Studies Center at an American university and authored, The Myth of the Negro Past.

A documentary of South Africa's quest for restorative justice following four cases that come before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Exploring a recurring and divisive issue in African American communities - skin color, this film is candid, sometimes painful, but also often funny. It inter-cuts intimate interviews with darker skinned African Americans, lighter skinned African Americans and inter-racial children of Black and white parents.

Colorism, a caste system based on skin color within the Black community, is traced and discussed.

Questions the very idea of race as innate biology, suggesting that a belief in inborn racial difference is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth

Eight professors of color discuss the special pressures minority faculty face in majority white institutions.

A multi-racial group of college students in a weekend racial sensitivity workshop discuss affirmative action, self-segregation, internalized racism and cultural identity.

Interviews with Black steelworkers recount the fight for equal opportunity on the job.

The story of a small town's search for justice and the price Americans pay for the war on drugs.

UNNATURAL CAUSES sounds the alarm about our disturbing socioeconomic and racial inequities in health - and searches for their root causes.

Jean Cheng of California Newsreel created this documentary in 2006 chronicling the experiences of a diverse group of college students - in this case, led by veteran UC Berkeley facilitators over the course of a semester - as they confront race, diversity, and their own responsibility for making a difference.