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