Bobby Rush

An inside look at the changing role of athletes in our fraught cultural and political environment, through the lens of the NBA.

Through a secret program called the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), there was a concerted effort to subvert the will of the people to avoid the rise "of a Black Messiah" that would mobilize the African-American community into a meaningful political force. This documentary establishes historical perspective on the measures initiated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI which aimed to discredit black political figures and forces of the late 1960's and early 1970's. Combining declassified documents, interviews, rare footage and exhaustive research, it investigates the government's role in the assassinations of Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Martin Luther King Jr. Were the murders the result of this concerted effort to avoid "a Black Messiah"?

Chicago 1969: Activists from the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and Young Patriots united African Americans, Latinos, and poor whites to confront police brutality and unfair housing practices in one of America’s most segregated cities. A timely story of collective action, The First Rainbow Coalition tells this little-known chronicle of political struggle with insight and urgency using archival footage and interviews with those who lived it.

“AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2” includes footage of the 1968 Democratic Convention protest and riot, a critique of events by working class African-Americans in Chicago, and attempts by the Black Panther Party to organize poor, southern white youths.

Fred Hampton was the leader of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. This film depicts his brutal murder by the Chicago police and its subsequent investigation, but also documents his activities in organizing the Chapter, his public speeches, and the programs he founded for children during the last eighteen months of his life.

Black Moderates and Black Militants documents an unrehearsed conversation between three members of the Chicago Chapter of the Black Panther Party, including future congressman Bobby Rush, and the principal of an African American high school. The two groups respectfully debate the varied strategies for ending racism.