This film highlights moments in the long and rich African American cinema history in relation to social and political events, and how it affected Black viewers of the time.
Narrator
21 Aug 2020
The incredibly powerful and timely true story of the all-black Twenty-Fourth United States Infantry Regiment, and the Houston Riot of 1917. The Houston Riot was a mutiny by 156 African American soldiers in response to the brutal violence and abuse at the hands of Houston police officers.
10 Nov 2019
Maurice Hines -- actor, director, singer, and choreographer -- navigates the complications of show business while grieving the loss of his more famous, often estranged younger brother, tap dance legend Gregory Hines.
04 Sep 2004
The story of Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight boxing champion.
10 Mar 2018
Harlem, 1926. A “sweetman” Zeddy, living off a woman, brings a country girl he’s trying to impress to a gay-owned cabaret. There he meets a friend, Jake, whose girlfriend, Congo Rose, is the singer there. Drama swirls around the characters as Zeddy confronts the cabaret owner, about his sexuality. Congo Rose, seeking to reignite her man’s fading interest, puts on a performance, with her Pansy Dancer, of a Bessie Smith song that seduces the whole room, especially Zeddy.
31 May 1982
Traces the life of Booker T. Washington, ex-slave, author, educator, and political leader, focusing on his stewardship of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Uses historic photographs, re-created vignettes, and interviews with contemporaries such as W.E.B. DuBois to present Washington's complex personality and his influence on southern life after the Civil War. Also examines his controversial policies of Black economic self-reliance and political accommodation
21 Feb 2024
By the end of his illustrious career, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves may well have been the preeminent lawman of the Old West. He brought upwards of 3,000 outlaws to justice and served in law enforcement for 32 years during Reconstruction after the Civil War. His story is one of an escape to freedom and the dangers of the West for a former slave who rose to become a legend of the law. Join us as we go in search of Bass Reeves.
10 Feb 2003
When the Civil War ended in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. Over 70 years later, the memories of some 2,000 slave-era survivors were transcribed and preserved by the Library of Congress. These first-person anecdotes, ranging from the brutal to the bittersweet, have been brought to vivid life in this unique HBO documentary special, featuring the on-camera voices of over a dozen top African-American actors.
19 Jul 2014
75% of all enslaved Africans coming to America came in through Beaufort and the sea islands of South Carolina. This beautiful and picturesque tourist destination, by its unique history is the epicenter of the Gullah culture and the foundation of African American history; the result of the mingling of West African slaves with the plantation culture awaiting them in America.
10 Nov 2023
Using innovative animation and expert insights, this documentary based on Ibram X. Kendi's bestseller explores the history of racist ideas in America.
06 Mar 2003
Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges overcame class and race prejudices in 18th century France to become a musical genius who would inspire Mozart.
22 Nov 2024
More than 60,000 of Ernest Cole’s 35mm film negatives were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Most considered these forever lost, especially the thousands of pictures he shot in the U.S. Told through Cole’s own writings, the stories of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film is a reintroduction of a pivotal Black artist to a new generation and will unravel the mystery of his missing negatives.
Explore the tumultuous life of Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr., a Jamaican political activist and advocate for Black Nationalism. From founding UNIA-ACL and finding prosperity through economic ventures to navigating financial hardships, assassination attempts, and politically motivated criminal charges, Garvey's impactful odyssey throughout Jamaica and America left an enduring imprint on history.
01 Jan 1995
A biographical documentary on the life and career of U.S. Army General Colin Powell.
A rare close-up of the Abakuá —an Afro-Cuban religious brotherhood that has been hidden from outsiders until recently. A symbol of resistance for over 200 years, the Abakuá society has managed to survive slavery, the Spanish domination and the Revolution, spite of all the bias and misunderstandings about their traditions and rituals.
22 Apr 2020
Sapelo is a feature-length documentary film that journeys within a unique American island to tell the story of two young brothers, their adoptive mother, and the last remaining enclave of the Saltwater Geechee people.
27 Apr 1976
For 'Et les chiens se taisaient' Maldoror adapted a piece of theatre by the poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), about a rebel who becomes profoundly aware of his otherness when condemned to death. His existential dialogue with his mother reverberates around the African sculptures on display at the Musée de l'Homme, a Parisian museum full of colonial plunder whose director was the Surrealist anthropologist Michel Leiris.
26 Aug 2017
Documentary film on events that happened on August 28th in African-American history, shown at the Smithsonian African-American History Museum.
21 Oct 2024
The little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest city in 1898 — the only coup d’état in the history of the US. Stoking fears of 'Negro Rule', self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington’s democratically-elected, multi-racial government. Black residents were murdered and thousands were banished. The story of what happened in Wilmington was suppressed for decades until descendants and scholars began to investigate. Today, many of those descendants — Black and white — seek the truth about this intentionally buried history.
18 May 2020
Alice Ball, a 23 year-old African American Chemist living in 1915 Hawaii fights against racial and gender barriers to find an effective treatment for leprosy before Kalani, a 10-year-old patient is exiled into the leper colony of Molokai.
02 Dec 2022
Through first person accounts and searing archival footage, this documentary tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County, Alabama.