Explore with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed-forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds.

America's Blues is an educational journey that explores the tremendous impact that blues music has had on American music, culture and society as a whole.

Explore the life and legacy of August Wilson, the playwright some call America's Shakespeare, who chronicled the twentieth-century black experience. Features James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Laurence Fishburne, Viola Davis, new dramatic readings, and rare footage.

Jean-Michel Basquiat was a rock star of the early 80s art scene: he lived fast, died young and created thousands of drawings and paintings. It took less than a decade to go from anonymous graffiti writer to an epoch-defining art star. He has emerged as one of the most important artists of his generation and his work is now exhibited in museums all over the world.

"The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is the first feature length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people, and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails. Master documentarian Stanley Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it. Featuring Kathleen Cleaver, Elaine Brown, Emory Douglas, Jamal Joseph, and many others, it's an essential history and a vibrant chronicle of this pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America"--Container.

Concerts filmed in Belgium in 1957 and Sweden in 1963, featuring many of Ella Fitzgerald's greatest songs.

The saga of the Freedom Rides. In 1961, four hundred and fifty Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. Arsenault recounts how a group of volunteers--blacks and whites--came together to travel from Washington DC through the Deep South, defying Jim Crow laws in buses and terminals and putting their lives on the line for racial justice. News photographers captured the violence in Montgomery, shocking the nation and sparking a crisis in the Kennedy administration. Here are the key players--their fears and courage, their determination and second thoughts, and the agonizing choices they faced as they took on Jim Crow--and triumphed. American Experience miniseries documents the Freedom Rides "Arsenault brings vividly to life a defining moment in modern American history."

"In the hot and deadly summer of 1964, the nation could not turn away from Mississippi. Over 10 memorable weeks known as Freedom Summer, more than 700 student volunteers joined with organizers and local African Americans in a historic effort to shatter the foundations of white supremacy in one of the nation's most segregated states ... even in the face of intimidation, physical violence, and death"--Container.

This original eight-part series on four volumes documents black achievement in American history, its defining role in the growth of the country, and its influence on current events. The series highlights the many contributions of black Americans that have influenced and shaped the history of the United States.