Virtual Book Display: Celebrating Black History

A part of the series America in the 20th Century. Anyone who thinks the civil rights movement began and ended with Martin Luther King Jr. will discover a new, eye-opening view of history in this program. It reveals a long-running struggle for racial equality starting with Civil War– and Reconstruction-era events, moving through the blight of Jim Crow and the formation of the NAACP and other groups, and depicting the drama of King’s movement in varied, evolving phases. The work of Malcolm X, the rise of the Black Power movement, and the future of America’s ongoing equality battles are also examined.

By the end of the Civil War, nearly 200,000 black soldiers were serving in the Federal Army. After the war, many decided not to return to a life of sharecropping and racial oppression, instead volunteering to battle outlaws and Indian raiders along the western frontier. This program uses dazzling reenactments and the expertise of military historians to tell the multifaceted story of the Buffalo Soldiers, a name given to black troops by their Native American adversaries. Viewers learn about the daily lives and daunting assignments of these proud African-Americans, the harsh environments in which they conducted missions, and the deeds of individual Buffalo Soldiers such as Sgt. Emanuel Stance, Lt. George Burnett, and Henry Flipper—the first black cadet to graduate from West Point, whose promising career was ended by an unjust and later discredited court martial. Hosted by well-known TV judge Joe Brown.

This film illustrates how black lives changed dramatically in the aftermath of the American Revolution. For free black people, these years were a time of opportunity, but for most African Americans, the era represented a new nadir. King Cotton fueled the rapid expansion of slavery into new territories and the forcible relocation of African Americans to the Deep South. Yet as slavery intensified, so did resistance. From individual acts to mass rebellions, African Americans demonstrated their determination to undermine and ultimately eradicate slavery.

This film examines the long road to civil rights, when the deep contradictions in American society finally became unsustainable. African Americans who fought fascism in World War II came home to face the same old racial violence.The success of black entrepreneurs and entertainers fueled African-American hopes and dreams. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, heralding the dawn of a movement of resistance, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as its public face. Before long, masses of African Americans practiced this nonviolent approach to integrate public schools, lunch counters and more. In 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, unleashing a new call for “Black Power” across the country.

Archival film footage of an interview with Martin Luther King, Jr. takes place in King's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on October 27, 1957. Host Martin Agronsky reviews events put in motion by Rosa Parks and the bus boycott organized by King.

Between 1790 and 1860, thousands of slaves fled the South for liberation on the "Underground Railroad," a system of invisible tracks and anonymous conductors who gave shelter to fugitive slaves. Through interviews with national experts, and examination of archival records and artifacts, this program provides an overview of the underground movement. In addition to interviews with descendants of slaves, conductors, and abolitionists, the program includes examples of spirituals sung by slaves as part of the "code" system, and visits homes that were used as shelters. The program highlights Rochester, NY, which was at the heart of the railroad, where passengers were hidden by Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, and many others.

More than 40 years after the Black Panther Party was founded the group and its leadership remains powerful and enduring images in our popular imagination. This will weave together the voices of those who lived this story—police informants journalists white supporters and detractors those who remained loyal to the party and those who left it.

Defiant, brave and free, the great abolitionists Thomas Garrett, William Still and Harriet Tubman, along with hundreds of lesser known and nameless opponents of slavery, formed a Corridor of Courage stretching from Maryland's eastern shore through the length of Delaware to Philadelphia and beyond - making the Underground Railroad a real route to freedom for enslaved Americans before the Civil War. Long-format interviews with prominent historians blend with dramatic reenactment to create a powerful story about the fight to end slavery.

Civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall’s triumph in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to desegregate America’s public schools completed the final leg of an heroic journey to end legal segregation. For 20 years, during wartime and the Depression, Marshall had traveled hundreds of thousands of miles through the Jim Crow South of the United States, fighting segregation case by case, establishing precedent after precedent, all leading up to one of the most important legal decisions in American history. Along the way, he escaped the gun of a Dallas sheriff, was pursued by the Ku Klux Klan on Long Island, hid in bushes from a violent mob in Detroit, and even survived his own lynching. In this impossible environment, Thurgood Marshall won more Supreme Court cases than any lawyer in American history, and set the stage for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Marshall, who went on to become the first black Supreme Court justice in 1967, made the work of civil rights pioneers like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks possible, by laying the groundwork to end legal segregation and changing the American legal landscape.

This documentary features the Civil Rights Movement in America.

LOVE and SOLIDARITY is an exploration of nonviolence and organizing through the life and teachings of Rev. James Lawson. Lawson provided crucial strategic guidance while working with Martin Luther King, Jr., in southern freedom struggles and the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968. Moving to Los Angeles in 1974, Lawson continued his nonviolence organizing in multi-racial community and worker coalitions that have helped to remake the LA labor movement. Through interviews and historical documents, acclaimed labor and civil rights historian Michael Honey and award-winning filmmaker Errol Webber put Lawson's discourse on nonviolent direct action on the front burner of today's struggles against economic inequality, racism and violence, and for human rights, peace, and economic justice.

In this documentary, Marlon Riggs carries his landmark studies of prejudice into the Television Age. COLOR ADJUSTMENT traces 40 years of race relations through the lens of prime time entertainment, scrutinizing television's racial myths and stereotypes. Narrated by Ruby Dee, COLOR ADJUSTMENT allows viewers to revisit some of television's most popular stars and shows, among them Amos and Andy, The Nat King Cole Show, I Spy, Julia, Good Times, Roots, Frank's Place and The Cosby Show. But this time around, Riggs asks us to look at these familiar favorites in a new way. The result is a stunning examination of the interplay between America's racial consciousness and network primetime programming.