WXXI TV

Examines the little-known fight for school desegregation led by a handful of Ohio mothers and their children in 1954. 

The Lincoln School Story airs Friday, February 7 at 10:30 p.m. WXXI-TV

In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, school districts nationwide were mandated to integrate. But when African American mothers in Hillsboro, Ohio, tried to enroll their children in the local, historically white schools, the school board refused to comply. Five mothers and their children took the school board to court and eventually their children became the first Black students to attend a high-quality local elementary school. Their judicial victory in the Midwest inspired Black parents in communities across the country.

Photo: (L-R) Zella Mae Cumberland, Gertrude Clemons and Minnie Speach. Photo credit: Press Gazette

The untold story behind the murder trial of Black Panther leader Huey Newton.

American Justice on Trial airs Monday, February 3 at 9 p.m. WXXI-TV

This film tells the story of the death penalty case that put racism on trial in a U.S. courtroom in the fall of 1968. Huey P. Newton, Black Panther Party co-founder, was accused of killing a white policeman and wounding another after a pre-dawn car stop in Oakland. Newton himself suffered a near-fatal wound. As the trial neared its end, J. Edgar Hoover branded the Black Panthers the greatest internal threat to American security. Earlier that year, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy rocked a nation already bitterly divided over the Vietnam War. As the jury deliberated Newton’s fate, America was a tinderbox waiting to explode.

At his trial, Newton and his maverick defense team led by Charles Garry and his then rare female co-counsel Fay Stender, defended the Panthers as a response to 400 years of racism and accused the policemen of racial profiling, insisting Newton had only acted in self-defense. Their unprecedented challenges to structural racism in the jury selection process were revolutionary and risky. If the Newton jury came back with the widely expected first degree murder verdict against the charismatic black militant, Newton would have faced the death penalty and national riots were anticipated. But Newton’s defense team redefined a “jury of one’s peers,” and a groundbreaking diverse jury headed by pioneering Black foreman David Harper delivered a shocking verdict that still reverberates today.

Photo: Huey Newton and his defense team Charles Garry & Fay Stender hold a press conference after the verdict/Credit: Ilka Hartmann

In the new season of the Emmy® nominated series, nineteen celebrity guests sit down with Dr. Gates, Jr. to dive into their ancestral history and solve mysteries that have plagued their families.

Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXXI app.

Gates and his team use genealogical detective work and cutting-edge DNA analysis to trace the family trees of twenty compelling guests, telling stories that illuminate America’s fundamental diversity. In addition to the all-star line-up, Gates will have his own familial mystery solved when the tables are turned and the celebrated host becomes a guest on an eagerly anticipated episode of the new season. 

As the pages turn in each guest’s book of life, emotional revelations give way to complex questions about identity. Through Gates’ discerning touch, his guests learn what every family history shares—love, courage, and sacrifice—and how our histories transcend borders, merging to form an American root system fortified by its diversity. Along the way, viewers are transported from coastal Africa to the Mississippi Delta; from shtetls in the former Russian Empire to the ancestral lands of the Lakota Nation; from villages in the Philippines to a pirate enclave in Puerto Rico—all in search of the stories that will bring our guests’ ancestors to life. What’s more, this new season also includes a special reveal: the solution to a mystery that has haunted Gates’ own family for generations.

Upcoming episodes feature:
1/28: Actor Sharon Stone and model Chrissy Teigen
2/4: Celebrity chefs José Andrés and Sean Sherman
2/11: Musician Rubén Blades and journalist Natalie Morales
2/18: Actors Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard
2/25: Actors Debra Messing and Melanie Lynskey (
4/1: Historian Lonnie Bunch and actor Sheryl Lee Ralph
4/8: Actor Laurence Fishburne and host and executive producer Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Past episodes:
1/7: Actors Lea Salonga and Amanda Seyfried
1/14: Talk show host Joy Behar and actor Michael Imperioli
1/21: Novelist Amy Tan and poet Rita Dove

Photo: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Credit: PBS

The remarkable life of a fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist.

America ReFramed “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” airs Saturday, March 29 at 3 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a portrait of a civil rights activist and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

Note: On January 4, 2025 Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer became the posthumous recipient of The Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Joe Biden presents the Medal to Doris Hamer Richardson, who accepted on behalf of her aunt, Fannie Lou Hamer. As one of the executive producers who worked on the “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America,” WXXI President & CEO Chris Hastings attended the ceremony.

Photo below from the Presidential Medal of Freedom event: Jed, Harriett and Salam Oppenheim, Selena Lauterer, President Joseph R. Biden, Doris Hamer Richardson, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, Angela Hamer Johnson, Chris and Miles Hastings and Hillary Rosenfeld. Photo courtesy of the White House.