Black History

Independent Lens: Breaking the News On-Demand

Frustrated by the lack of representation in the media, a group of women and LGBTQ+ journalists launched The 19th*, a digital news startup whose work is guided by elevating the voices often left out of the American story. Watch on-demand through 5/19/24.

Independent Lens: Breaking the News follows the launch of The 19th*, a news startup that seeks to change the white, male-dominated news industry, asking who’s been omitted from mainstream coverage and how to include them. Bringing the viewer right into the newsroom during tense moments as the startup launches in a pandemic amid rising social unrest, the film provides an inside view of what it takes to challenge the status quo and break the mold in American media.

Shot over three years, the film documents the honest discussions at The 19th* around race and gender equity, revealing that change doesn’t come easy, and showcases how they confront these challenges both as a workplace and in their journalism. But this film is about more than a newsroom; it’s about America in flux and the voices that are often left out of the American story.

NPR Black Stories, Black Truths:

A special podcast series featuring black lives, experiences and voices brought to you by NPR.

The Black Stories, Black Truths Podcast Series: NPR’s best podcast episodes and features from across the Black experience. Some might make you laugh. Some might make you feel inspired. Others might make you uncomfortable. And some might make you feel all of that in the same five-minute span.

Black Stories, Black Truths Podcast Series

See Black Stories, Black Truths Videos promoting the podcast series and—most importantly—a celebration of Black voices in journalism. Our voices aren’t a monolith, and neither is public media.

Great Performances: The Magic of Spirituals • WXXI-TV

Discover the behind-the-scenes story of Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle’s famed concert at Carnegie Hall on March 18, 1990.

Great Performances: The Magic of Spirituals airs Friday, April 18 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

With legendary African American contralto Marian Anderson in attendance, many wondered if the two singers would compete or join forces and sing together. Showcasing extended excerpts of Norman and Battle in performance, the documentary examines the preparation required and the historic concert’s enduring impact. New interviews and reminiscences are featured from the concert’s producer Peter Gelb (currently Met Opera General Manager), soprano Angel Blue, author and playwright Darryl Pinckney, arranger and composer Evelyn Simpson-Curenton, Harlem Gospel Singers’ founder Queen Esther Marrow, Fisk Jubilee Singers Musical Director Paul T. Kwami, and jazz and opera singer Jocelyn B. Smith.

Photo: Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle • Credit: PBS

The Niagara Movement: The Early Battle for Civil Rights On-Demand

The Niagara Movement | The Early Battle for Civil Rights explores the Black elite and intellectual society at the turn of the 20th century, a class rarely presented. It examines the heated debate and conflict between W.E.B DuBois and William Monroe Trotter with Booker T. Washington on how to best uplift the race and secure equality for their community.

The Niagara Movement PBS LearningMedia Collection: Explore Video Shorts and Lessons

About the Film:

The Niagara Movement: the Early Battle for Civil Rights, a powerful hour-long documentary by WNED PBS, delves deep into the movement’s pivotal role in shaping the civil rights landscape. The documentary explores the Black elite and intellectual society at the turn of the 20th century and examines the heated debate and conflict W.E.B DuBois and William Monroe Trotter had with Booker T. Washington on how to best uplift the race and secure equality for Black Americans.

In July 1905, a group of 29 men, including Black intellectuals, clergy, writers, newspapermen, and activists, was formed and led by a young sociologist, W.E.B. DuBois. The group adopted the resolutions which lead to the founding of the Niagara Movement. Its Declaration of Principles stated, in part: “We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression, and apologetic before insults.”

The Niagara Movement was, in large part, a repudiation of the methods of Booker T. Washington, the unchallenged leader of Black liberation at the time. This was a time of widespread violence against Black Americans, as the end of Reconstruction brought oppressive Jim Crow laws and widespread lynching. How were Black Americans to respond to this oppression? Washington argued that the progress for Black Americans depended on practical but limited education – that legitimate protest against white supremacy would only make things worse, and that rights were secondary to survival. The formation of the Niagara Movement was a counter-movement: a national group dedicated to accepting nothing less than full civil rights.

Although the Movement was disbanded only four years after its inception, its impact and legacy have proven long-lasting. The Niagara Movement was a critical turning point in fighting inequality and it laid the cornerstone of the modern American Civil Rights Movement. Its influence and legacy are wide: it changed the tone and approach to Black protest in America, it created tactics, such as fighting in the courts for integration, that would be used by the NAACP, and it influenced the ideology of both the “black power” movement of the 1960s and the Black Lives Matter movement of the 21st century.

GOSPEL Live! Presented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. • WXXI-TV

From the blues to hip-hop, African Americans have been the driving force of sonic innovation for over a century.

GOSPEL Live! Presented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. airs Tuesday, June 4 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Musical styles come and go, but there is one sound that has been a constant source of strength, courage, and wisdom from the pulpit to the choir lofts on any given Sunday: the gospel. The gospel concert special, produced by McGee Media, Done + Dusted, and Friends at Work, celebrates gospel music and its extraordinary impact on culture and pop music. Featuring the biggest names in gospel music together with the biggest stars from the world of pop, R&B and beyond, the concert will be recorded in Los Angeles in front of a live audience, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This one-hour PBS special, from showrunner Kristen V. Carter, will both be inspired by and build excitement for the landmark four-hour history series, GOSPEL.

Photo: Lena Byrd Miles • Credit: PBS

Independent Lens: Breaking the News • WXXI-TV

Independent Lens: Breaking the News airs Monday, February 19 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Photo: Reporter Kate Sosin contemplating at desk • Credit: Heather Courtney

Watch the Trailer:

GOSPEL • WXXI-WORLD

Explores the rich history of Black spirituality through sermon and song.

GOSPEL airs Saturday, December 14 at 9 a.m. on WXXI-WORLD

From executive producer, host, and writer Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., GOSPEL reunites with directors Stacey L. Holman and Shayla Harris after recently teaming up on Making Black America: Through the Grapevine.

Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, speaks with dozens of clergymen, singers and scholars about their connection to the music that has transcended its origins and now spreads “the good word” all around the world. The series features interviews with notable names including Dionne Warwick, U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, Rev. Otis Moss III, professor Michael Eric Dyson, and awe-inspiring musical performances of Gospel favorites “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus,” “Total Praise,” and others from talents including The Belle Singers, Cory Henry, Celisse, and more. Throughout its four hours, GOSPEL gives a look at the history of Black religious music and preaching, showcasing the symbiotic relationship of words and song present in any Black church. The series examines the origin of Black gospel music, which blended the sacred spirituals with the blues tradition and soared to new heights during the Great Migration. This music served as an outlet for the anger and frustration of living as a Black person in America, which remains true today. The series also explores the evolution of preaching styles over time, and the impact of class, gender, cultural innovations, and consumer technologies shaped the development of gospel since its conception.

Photo: Tyrell Bell and the Belle Singers, featuring Ian Johnson, perform “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus”, for GOSPEL. • Credit: McGee Media

Shuttlesworth • Monday, February 12 at 2 p.m. on WXXI-WORLD

A film that traces the unique crucible of Birmingham’s brutal industrial history in creating what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the “most segregated city in America” and the people that were willing to take it on – personified in the fearless, indomitable Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.

Shuttlesworth airs Monday, February 12 at 2 p.m. on WXXI-WORLD

His tireless work in the face of beatings at the hands of the KKK and bombing of his own home, as well as constant harassment by the police and shunning by members of his own community, was unprecedented in the Movement leadership and inspired legions of Foot Soldiers willing to follow him into the breach.

Beginning with his segregated childhood in the Oxmoor Valley, Shuttlesworth follows the reverend’s life through Bethel Baptist Church, the Birmingham Campaign and the reactionary violence unleashed by the white power structure of the city. Through this lens, Shuttlesworth examines the City of Birmingham, its unique history and culture, and how the city became the symbol for social justice and the American Civil Rights Movement.

Photo: Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth • Credit: PBS