Movies: Black history

Using innovative animation and expert insights, this documentary based on Ibram X. Kendi's bestseller explores the history of racist ideas in America....

The true life story of Wendell Scott, the first black stock car racing driver to win an upper-tier NASCAR race....

The story of Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight boxing champion....

A look at the Black revolution in 1970s cinema, from genre films to social realism, from the making of new superstars to the craft of rising auteurs....

Denver’s iconic and Grammy Award-winning musicians reveal the secrets of their success and longevity in the music business while warning the young lions to whom they pass the torch to stay relevant in a marketplace both treacherous and brutal. The m...

This documentary captures the sounds and images of a nearly forgotten era in film history when African American filmmakers and studios created “race movies” exclusively for black audiences. The best of these films attempted to counter the demeaning s...

Documents the race riot of 1921 and the destruction of the African-American community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With testimony by eyewitnesses and background accounts by historians....

A haven for Black intellectuals, artists and revolutionaries—and path of promise toward the American dream—Black colleges and universities have educated the architects of freedom movements and cultivated leaders in every field. They have been unapolo...

An animated satire on the question of self-image for African American women living in a society where beautiful hair is viewed as hair that blows in the wind and lets you be free. Lively tunes and witty narration accompany a quick-paced inventory of ...

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 c...

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 attemp...

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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 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 i...

The celebratory explosion of basketball history makers, legend shakers and lawbreakers; juxtaposed against important events in Civil & Human Rights. The 50 years of The Rucker's ripples reverberate throughout Basketball, Hip-Hop, Harlem, and life...

Art Kane, now deceased, coordinated a group photograph of all the top jazz musicians in NYC in the year 1958, for a piece in Esquire magazine. Just about every jazz musician at the time showed up for the photo shoot which took place in front of a bro...

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 t...

Documentary film on events that happened on August 28th in African-American history, shown at the Smithsonian African-American History Museum....

Black women had extremely limited options during Jim Crow. Odessa’s story explores how an African American woman born in a time with limited options leveraged her incredible mind and quick wit to become wealthier than she ever should have been able ...

Hebrews to Negroes 2 : Revelation is a documentary that uncovers the 'True Biblical Identity" and Ancestral Homeland of the people living in North Africa, the Middle East and the Levant (Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel). Find out what "secr...