Black History Month

In his documentary (and HBO) debut, renowned director/producer Spike Lee takes an in-depth look at one of America's most heinous crimes, a racially motivated bombing that may have been caused by -- and most definitely helped define -- the emerging civil-rights movement championed by Dr. Martin Luther King and others. 4 Little Girls is at once a moving human account by family members and friends of the four girls who perished in the September 15, 1963 bombing, as well as an important historical account of the forces that shaped race relations in Birmingham (called by King "the most thoroughly segregated city in the U.S.") and the nation in the 1960s.

Part 1 Out of the Shadows: The series begins at a turning point in American history: the Selma marches and Watts riots that marked a new phase in the black struggle. Gates explores the rising call for Black Power, redefining American culture, politics, and society;
Part 2 Move on Up: The second hour dramatizes the diverging paths for African Americans and outbursts of white backlash that emerged in the 1970s and early ‘80s. Gates explores how African Americans found a new source of hope from the creation of hip-hop;
Part 3 Keep Your Head Up: The third hour reveals profound fissures within the country—and within black America—that deepened through the 1980s and ‘90s, just as African Americans were becoming more visible than ever;
Part 4 Touch the Sky:The final hour brings the story up to the present day. Gates celebrates how far African Americans have come toward equality and raises hard questions about the obstacles that remain.

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this Peabody Award-winning documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the highest office in the land. 4 part series.

First there was the law, and then there was enforcement of the law. This program begins at Little Rock’s Central High School, when soldiers had to provide safety for black children exercising their legal right to go to school. Martin Luther King, Jr., already appears in 1958 at a meeting of black leaders with President Eisenhower. The civil rights movement accelerated: marches, clashes with the police and the jailing of demonstrators, the murder of Medgar Evers, the bombing of the Baptist church in Birmingham, sit-ins and protests, the Montgomery march, the Mississippi Freedom march, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous "I Have a Dream" and "I Have Been to the Mountaintop" speeches, his funeral, and President Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Bill of 1968. (27 minutes)

In this program from Tony Brown's Journal, Dr. Chancellor Williams, widely-acclaimed historian and scholar who labored for 35 years researching and writing his seminal work, The Destruction of Black Civilization, explains his soundly researched theory as to why Africans, the first builders of civilization in the cradle of world civilization and the discoverers of mathematics, writing, sciences, engineering, medicine, religion, and fine arts, were so easily toppled.

From award-winning director/producer Peter Kunhardt, King in the Wilderness follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the volatile last three years of his life, from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in April 1968. An HBO production.

After 1968, African Americans set out to build a bright future on the foundation of the civil rights movement’s victories, but a growing class disparity threatened to split the black community. As African Americans won political office across the country and the black middle class made progress, larger economic and political forces isolated the black urban poor. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, many hoped that America had finally transcended racism. By the time of his second victory, however, it was clear that many issues, including true racial equality, remain to be resolved. (56 minutes) Distributed by PBS Distribution.

Episode 1: "The Difference Between Us" 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.
Episode 2: "The Story We Tell" uncovers the roots of the race concept in North America, the 19th century science that legitimated it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the western imagination. The episode is an eye-opening tale of how race served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as "natural."
Episode 3 : "The House We Live In" asks, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race resides not in nature but in politics, economics and culture. It reveals how our social institutions "make" race by disproportionately channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks was born a granddaughter to former slaves, on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in December of 1955, spurred a city-wide boycott and unleashed nationwide efforts to end segregation of public facilities. Her brave and unwavering determination proved monumental.

Filmmaker Daphne Valerius's award-winning documentary THE SOULS OF BLACK GIRLS explores how media images of beauty undercut the self-esteem of African-American women. Valerius surveys the dominant white, light-skinned, and thin ideals of beauty that circulate in the culture, from fashion magazines to film and music video, and talks with African-American girls and women about how these images affect the way they see themselves. The film also features powerful commentary from rapper and activist Chuck D, actresses Regina King and Jada Pinkett Smith, PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill, cultural critic Michaela Angela Davis, and others.

This film documents the increasingly common conversation taking place in homes across the country between parents of color and their children, especially sons, about how to behave if they are ever stopped by the police.

The first documentary to explore the American family photo album through the eyes of black photographers, Through a Lens Darkly probes the recesses of American history to discover images that have been suppressed, forgotten and lost. From slavery to the present, these extraordinary images unveil a world confronting the difficult edges of citizenship and what it means to be human. Inspired by Deborah Willis’s book Reflections in Black and featuring works by Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Anthony Barboza, Hank Willis Thomas and many others, Through a Lens Darkly introduces the viewer to a community of storytellers who collectively transform singular experiences into a journey of discovery—and a call to action.

The great grandson of a slave, Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908. At the age of 25, Marshall graduated first in his class from Howard Law and joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization. As NAACP counsel, Marshall used the constitution to successfully argue for a slew of rights now taken for granted, and forced the University of Maryland Law School to admit its first black student, just five years after that same school had rejected Marshall due to his race. At age 59, he became the first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Public performance rights - MCC. This original eight-part series on four volumes documents black achievement in American history, its defining role in the growth of the country, and its influence on current events. The series highlights the many contributions of black Americans that have influenced and shaped the history of the United States.