Production
Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
Dig deep into the origin story of Black gospel music, coming out of slavery, blending with the blues tradition, and soaring to new heights during the Great Migration. From Mahalia to Kirk Franklin, in the last century, gospel music has become the dominant form of African American religious expression and provided a soundtrack of healing and uplift to those at the front lines of protest and change.
Four-part docuseries that explores the complex relationship between Black Americans and Jewish Americans - forged in shared struggle, tested by division, and representing a uniquely American experience.
A chronicle of the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people—beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. sits with noted scholars, politicians, cultural leaders, and old friends to discuss this world behind the color line and what it looks like today.
In the aftermath of the deadly "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a civil lawsuit was filed against white nationalist leaders and organizations on behalf of plaintiffs who suffered injuries while peacefully counterprotesting. This documentary chronicles this seminal civil rights trial, exposing a broad network of conspirators and detailing the challenges of holding those leaders and organizations liable for their actions.
The 400-year-old story of the black church in America, the changing nature of worship spaces, and the men and women who shepherded them from the pulpit, the choir loft, and church pews.
Explores the transformative impact of Black migration on American culture and society. From the waves of Black Americans to the North—and back South—over the last century to the growing number of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean today, movement is a defining feature of the Black experience.
Three filmmakers dive deep into the storied and complex legacy of Ms. magazine through the lens of some of its most iconic covers, featuring never-before-seen archival footage and engaging interviews with the powerful women who shaped the magazine at its inception over fifty years ago
Actor Courtney B. Vance hosts this special celebrating Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s work with focus on his five quintessential documentary series about American, African and African American history for PBS.
Explore the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy.
Acclaimed actors draw from five of Douglass’ legendary speeches, to represent a different moment in the tumultuous history of 19th century America as well as a different stage of Douglass’ long and celebrated life, while famed scholars provide context for the speeches, and remind us that Frederick Douglass’ words about racial injustice still resonate deeply today.
Filmmaker Peter Kunhardt examines how a one-of-a-kind collection of Abraham Lincoln photos and memorabilia have profoundly shaped the lives and sensibilities of five generations of his family.
The series explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a ‘brief moment in the sun’ for African Americans, when they could advance, and achieve, education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office.
