Independent Television Service.

American culture has stereotyped black Americans for centuries. Equally devastating, the late Marlon Riggs argued, have been the definitions of "blackness" African Americans impose upon one another which contain and reduce the black experience. In this film, Riggs meets a cross-section of African Americans grappling with the paradox of numerous, often contradictory definitions of blackness.

A frank and honest look at black identity in America. Uses incisive storytelling and commentary from prominent black intellectuals, including Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, and Cornel West. Meant to stir provocative debate and add reinforcement to a bold vision for a humanity that embraces all people. Explodes the myth that black America is monolithic.

The powerful documentary examines the life of Muhammad Ali beyond the boxing ring to offer a personal perspective on the American sporting legend. Investigating Ali's spiritual transformation includes his conversion to Islam, resistance to the Vietnam War draft, and humanitarian work. The documentary connects Ali's transcendent life story to America' struggles with race, religion, and war in the twentieth century. "When Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad...

Filmmaker Byron Hurt looks at the past and future of soul food, covering its roots in Western Africa, its incarnation in the American South, and the role it plays in the health crisis in the African American community. Examines the socioeconomics of the modern American diet, and how the food industry profits from producing cheap calories while healthy options remain expensive and hard to find.

"Focuses on the explosive urban rebellion which erupted in Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967; a tragedy caused by similar problems that sparked race riots across America. The film takes viewers on a daily chronicle of events, including the calling in of the State Police and National Guard, their occupation of the city and use of unnecessary firepower. Final toll: 26 dead"--Container.

A laugh-out-loud real-life romantic comedy about Ravi Patel, an almost-30-year-old Indian American who enters a love triangle between the woman of his dreams and...his parents.

Words from a Bear gives a thorough survey of Momaday's most prolific years as a doctorate fellow at Stanford University, his achievement of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1969, and his later works that solidified his place as the founding member of the 'Native American Renaissance' in art and literature, influencing a generation of Native American artists, scholars, and political activists.

On March 8, 1971, eight ordinary citizens broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, a town just outside of Philadelphia, took hundreds of secret files, and shared them with the public. In doing so, they uncovered the FBI's vast and illegal regime of spying and intimidation of Americans excercising their First Amendment rights. Despite conducting one of the most thorough investigations in its history, the FBI never solved the mystery of the...

In 1861, at the outbreak of the American Civil War, a teenager from New Orleans headed to the front lines. Under the alias Harry T. Buford, he fought at First Bull Run, was wounded at Shiloh, and served as a Confederate spy. But Buford harbored a secret–he was really Loreta Velazquez, a Cuban immigrant from New Orleans. By 1863, Velazquez was spying for the Union. She scandalized America when she revealed her story in her 1876 memoir, The Woman...

"Detroit's story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century: the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now, the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos. With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the...