Everybody Needs a Forever Home

A story to honor actor-singer-activist Paul Robeson and his contributions to today's social climate and inspire new generations to engage in the ongoing fight for justice and equality.

Rhythmic and raw, Dark City Beneath The Beat is a Baltimore club musical experience highlighting local Baltimore club artists, djs, dancers and producers pioneering the sound while rising above social and economic turmoil. Inspired by an original Baltimore club music soundtrack, Dark City Beneath The Beat showcases Baltimore club music as a positive subculture in a city overshadowed by trauma, drugs and violence.

Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.

James Brown changed the face of American music forever. Abandoned by his parents at an early age, James Brown was a self-made man who became one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, not just through his music, but also as a social activist. Charting his journey from rhythm and blues to funk, MR. DYNAMITE: THE RISE OF JAMES BROWN features rare and previously unseen footage, photographs and interviews, chronicling the musical ascension of “the hardest working man in show business,” from his first hit, “Please, Please, Please,” in 1956, to his iconic performances at the Apollo Theater, the T.A.M.I. Show, the Paris Olympia and more.

A documentary following the life of Olaudah Equiano, based on his autobiography "The Interesting Narration of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African".

A look at three U.S. cities, which were part of many communities that violently forced African American families to flee in post-reconstruction America.

Pata Seca (1828), a man whose back bore the whip marks of his enslavers , whose eyes held the haunted memory of being forced to breed over 200 slave children in order to sustain his master’s plantation. Men broken but unbowed, transformed from field hands into soldiers from the civil war to Vietnam. This documentary weaves together authentic narratives from the 1800s, accompanied by original images and footage, highlighting the significant influence that Black men in uniform had in Hollywood and addressing ongoing relevant issues to date.

Composed of intimate and unencumbered moments of people in a community, this film is constructed in a form that allows the viewer an emotive impression of the Historic South - trumpeting the beauty of life and consequences of the social construction of race, while simultaneously a testament to dreaming.

Four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City break down the walls of their profession.

Lacey Schwartz grew up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity - despite the open questions from those around her about how a white girl could have such dark skin. She believes her family's explanation that her looks were inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather. But when her parents abruptly split, her gut starts to tell her something different. At age of 18, she finally confronts her mother and learns the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but a black man named Rodney with whom her mother had had an affair.

An African-American family in Georgia works to save money for a power saw. Includes depictions of timber harvest techniques and process. Film made in 1952 by the United States Information Service and intended for foreign audiences.

In contrast to the lens that focuses exclusively on the racist traditions that are rooted in America’s social history, the moral counterweight of close, loving, friendship and collaboration, which have always been present in our history, represents “the other tradition.” This “other tradition” is a source of inspiration and presents models of behavior that are instructional and include unknown and uncelebrated legacies to be absorbed and emulated across generations of present day Americans. The documentary discusses the “better in us” a needed collective perspective in the current climate of national disunity across racial, religious, and political lines. This has significant implications for addressing public issues from immigration to health care and the myriad of governmental, educational, business, and religious challenges that we must successfully meet to weave the fabric of unity which is indispensable to survival as a nation.

Tarik Shah, supremely talented Muslim American jazz bassist, endured 15 years of unjust imprisonment. Shah toured with jazz legend Betty Carter and was invited to play at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, only to be unfairly targeted by the FBI after 9/11. This is the inspirational true story of his music, resilience, and unconquerable spirit

Alma W. Thomas lived a life of firsts: the first Fine Arts graduate of Howard University (1924), the first Black woman to mount a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1972), and the first Black woman to have her paintings exhibited in the White House (2009). Yet she did not receive national attention until she was 80.

The Black Contribution – Literature and Theater 1978 is a rare documentary highlighting the voices and cultural impact of African American writers and performers during the civil rights era. Introduced by NAACP leader Benjamin Hooks and narrated by Roscoe Lee Brown, the film weaves together dramatic readings, theatrical excerpts, and candid urban street footage. Margaret Walker’s poem For My People is performed alongside scenes of daily Black life in New York City — children playing, families on stoops, open fire hydrants, and the realities of poverty in 1970s neighborhoods. James Baldwin appears in interview footage, while signs for his play The Amen Corner and stage excerpts from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun underscore the powerful presence of Black voices in American theater. With rare shots of Harlem life, literature, and performance, this film documents the enduring contributions of African American artists to U.S. culture and history.

Despite Blacks making up only 7% of Madison WI's population, they are leading in so many important areas from education to politics, and are launching so many multi-million dollar projects that people describe this period as a "Black Renaissance."

Based on A Few Days Full of Trouble by Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr. and Christopher Benson, the feature doc will explore two parallel tracks of the Till story. One set in motion by the last four years of an FBI investigation with details never before revealed, including significant new revelations of the case and its discoveries. The traumatic memory of Parker Jr., last surviving witness to the crime and Till’s cousin, drives that investigation. The second track is a deep immersion into the latest, proprietary findings, as high schoolers prepare for a reenactment of the murder trial of two of Till’s killers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam.

African American soldiers throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries faced discrimination and segregation, yet many still chose to fight for their country.

A look into the 19th century American-Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and the conflicts between Apache tribes and the African-American Buffalo soldier regiments.

Four young girls prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C., jail.