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WXXI celebrates Women’s History and Heritage. We proudly feature moments in women’s history that had their roots and connections to Rochester. Watch On-Demand and also see the profiles on WXXI-TV.
Explore the contributions of national and local people that contributed to women’s rights and learn about their roots in Rochester.
WATCH ALL PROFILES IN THIS PLAYLIST
Watch additional suffrage champions from the Celebrating 2020 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage.
Premieres Friday, March 17 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV
Rochester’s own Renée Fleming makes her return to the Met in this new opera by from Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts, adapted from Michael Cunningham’s novel, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” Also inspired by the 2002 Oscar-winning film, the opera follows three women from different eras who each grapple with inner demons and their roles in society. The opera also stars Tony winner Kelli O’Hara and opera star Joyce DiDonato. Phelim McDermott directs with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. Christine Baranski hosts.
American Experience presents Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space. Meet the influential author and anthropologist whose groundbreaking anthropological work challenged the assumptions about race, gender, and cultural superiority that had long defined the field in the 19th century.
Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore. (Available through: January 16, 2026 11:59 pm)
