Browse Documentary. African American Heritage

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The Weather Underground

Actors: Tse-tung Mao, Walter Mondale, Brian Flanagan (II), Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon
ASIN : B0001LYFKO
Sales Rank : 10845
Director : Sam Green (II), Bill Siegel
Studio : NEW VIDEO GROUP
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780767063685
ISBN : 0767063686
UPC : 767685960233
Release Date : December 25, 2004
Publisher : NEW VIDEO GROUP
Manufacturer : NEW VIDEO GROUP
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : NEW VIDEO GROUP
Running Time : 92

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The key players in the radical movement known as the Weather Underground are skillfully brought to life in this Oscar-nominated documentary. The Weathermen were born of sixties protest, but took their scheme to overthrow the U.S. government to especially violent extremes. Never a well-populated movement, the Underground petered out as its leaders aged during the seventies; by decade's end, weary of hiding, most of them had turned themselves over to the authorities. That journey, by which a fire-breathing revolutionary such as Bernadine Dohrn became a (still fiery) gray-haired wife and mother, is an intriguing one. This film, rich in period footage (and some unnecessary sensationalism) captures the era somewhat broadly. But the present-day interviews with the participants, contrasted with their radical selves, provides an exceptionally detailed look inside the organization itself. It's not a nostalgic look back, and the overall mood is sobering rather than celebratory. Lili Taylor provides the narration. --Robert Horton

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Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have a Dream

Actor: Martin Luther King Jr.
ASIN : B00069FLAY
Sales Rank : 10532
Studio : MPI Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780788605994
ISBN : 0788605992
UPC : 030306135090
Release Date : December 11, 2005
Publisher : MPI Home Video
Manufacturer : MPI Home Video
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Label : MPI Home Video
Running Time : 60

Description

"I have a dream today." On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King spoke these words as he addressed a crowd of more than 200,000 civil rights protesters gathered at The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Two months earlier, President John Kennedy had sent a civil rights bill to Congress, but it was struck down. Although Kennedy was concerned about the possibility of widespread violence during this protest, he realized he was powerless to stop it and embraced the movement instead. Known as the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," the country expected to hear King deliver strong words to his opponents. Instead, his "I Have a Dream" speech was one of heartfelt passion and poetic eloquence that still echoes in our memory.

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One of the greatest and most memorable moments in the civil rights movement occurred when 200,000 people marched on Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. Not only was the gathering of so many united people extraordinary, but that day Martin Luther King Jr. stood before the marchers and delivered his most eloquent and inspiring speech. This video offers the "I Have a Dream" speech in its entirety, as well as footage of the opposition the protesters faced, such as the fire hoses the police in Alabama used to disperse the crowds. The narrator explains that the hoses shot 700 pounds of pressure, enough to strip the bark off a tree. However, the grimness of this era is not the only focus in this video. Dr. King had so much hope and faith in the success of the civil rights movement, and the greatest demonstration of this is in the famous speech. He uses modern metaphors and poetry to get his message out clearly, as when he describes the capitol as having given blacks a check marked "insufficient funds," but he reminds us that they will refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt, that they will cash their check for riches of freedom and security of justice. Throughout the speech he emphasizes his mission: nonviolence as a method of overcoming ("Soul force against militant force") and the importance of walking together as a unified group, and never walking alone. Although the video ends with his death, it still leaves the viewer feeling uplifted with Robert Kennedy's memorial address, pleading with Americans to hold on to Dr. King's views and adopt them as their own. A concise video with one of the greatest speeches of our time. --Samantha Allen Storey

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The U.S. vs. John Lennon

Actors: John Lennon, Pat Nixon, Chris Charlesworth, Everett Dirksen, Gloria Emerson
ASIN : B000LP5CX4
Sales Rank : 6818
Director : David Leaf, John Scheinfeld
Brand : Lions Gate
Studio : Lions Gate
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0031398209119
UPC : 031398209119
Release Date : December 13, 2007
Publisher : Lions Gate
Manufacturer : Lions Gate
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Label : Lions Gate
Running Time : 96

Description

The compelling and provocative story of John Lennon's evolution from beloved Beatle to outspoken artist and activist to iconic inspiration for peace, and how, in the midst of one of the most tumultuous times in American history, Lennon stood his ground, refused to be silenced and courageously won his battle with the U.S. Government.

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In retrospect, it seems absurd that the United States government felt so threatened by the presence of John Lennon that they tried to have him deported. But that's what happened, as chronicled in directors David Leaf and John Scheinfeld's The U.S. vs. John Lennon. The film starts slowly, with a familiar look at the former Beatle's troubled childhood, his outspokenness as one of the Fabs ("We're more popular now than Jesus Christ," etc.), and his eventual hookup with Yoko Ono, paralleled by the growth of political protest in '60s America, particularly against the Vietnam War. John and Yoko went on to stage their own peaceful demonstrations, like the Canadian "bed-ins," but these were largely harmless media stunts. It was when the Lennons moved to New York in the early '70s and took a more active role in the anti-war movement, making friends with radicals like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale, that the government got interested--and paranoid--and men like President Richard Nixon, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and right-wing Sen. Strom Thurmond began actively looking for ways to silence him (it was Thurmond who came up with the deportation idea). That's also when the film picks up. An array of talking heads weighs in, ranging from Ono and others sympathetic to Lennon's plight (Walter Cronkite, Sen. George McGovern, even Geraldo Rivera) to those on the other side, including Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy. Though The U.S. vs. John Lennon is hardly impartial, it's safe to say that although Lennon was more an idealist than an activist, he was an influential celebrity whom Nixon viewed as a potential nuisance in an election year. And even once Nixon had won the '72 presidential race, the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to drop its case. Why? "Anybody who sings about love, and harmony, and life, is dangerous to somebody who sings about death," says author Gore Vidal. "Lennon... was a born enemy of the U.S. He was everything they hated." For music fans, Lennon's solo recordings provide the soundtrack. The DVD also contains considerable additional documentary footage. --Sam Graham

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Naqoyqatsi

Actors: Marlon Brando, Bella Donna, Elton John, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bhagwan Mirchandani
ASIN : B00005JLIA
Sales Rank : 10319
Director : Godfrey Reggio
Studio : Miramax
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0786936220926
UPC : 786936220926
Release Date : December 14, 2003
Publisher : Miramax
Manufacturer : Miramax
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Label : Miramax
Running Time : 89

Description

Miramax Home Entertainment and Oscar(R)-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (Best Director, TRAFFIC, 2000) present NAQOYQATSI ("Life As War"), from filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, in collaboration with composer Phillip Glass, whose original score features renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In this cinematic concert -- the concluding film of the Qatsi Trilogy preceded by the critically acclaimed KOYAANISQATSI ("Life Out Of Balance"), and POWAQQATSI ("Life In Transformation") -- mesmerizing images reanimated from everyday reality, then visually altered with state-of-the-art digital techniques, chronicle the shift from a world organized by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic, and the virtual. Extremes of intimacy and spectacle, tragedy and hope, fuse in a tidal wave of visuals and music, giving rise to a unique artistic experience that reflects Reggio's visions of a brave new globalized world.

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Whether your intellect is completely engaged or passively detached, any viewing of Naqoyqatsi is likely to provoke a fascinating response. You can view it as a magnificent, visually stimulating music video (as critic Roger Ebert suggested you should), or in context as the third and most unsettling film in director Godfrey Reggio's "qatsi" trilogy, each titled from the Hopi language, and preceded by Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi ("Life out of Balance" and "Life in Transformation," respectively). "Life as War" is the translation of this film's title, and Reggio's theme is not one of conventional warfare, but of daily life as warfare in the age of rapidly evolving technology. The entire trilogy views humankind as a blight on the pristine nature of Earth, but here the theme is taken to its inevitable extreme: a constant flow of new and archival images--manipulated with solarization, digital enhancements, thermal effects, 2-D and 3-D animation, etc.--combine to convey athletic and military regimentation, culminating in the doomsday flowering of missiles, rockets, and all varieties of nuclear weaponry. The cumulative effect, when combined with Philip Glass's mesmerizing score (his best of the trilogy, with cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma) is one of doom-laden portent, but, as Stephen Holden observed in the New York Times, the film is also arrestingly beautiful as it weaves its hypnotic, apocalyptic spell. For those who wish to delve further, Reggio, Glass, and editor/visual designer Jon Kane provide valuable insight in a bonus panel discussion. --Jeff Shannon

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Thelonious Monk - Straight No Chaser

Actors: Thelonious Monk, Nica De Koenigswarter, Barry Harris, Bob Jones (IV), Johnny Griffin
ASIN : B000053VC9
Sales Rank : 13894
Director : Charlotte Zwerin
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790752983
ISBN : 0790752980
UPC : 085391189626
Release Date : December 30, 2001
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
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Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 90

Description

Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser. Filmmaker Bruce Ricker couldn't believe his luck. Michael and Christian Blackwood's extensive 1968 footage of the groundbreaking modern jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, including the only footage of the very private Monk off stage, was in excellent condition. The reels were, in Ricker's words, "just sitting there like the Dead Sea Scrolls of jazz." Ricker, as co-producer, joins director and fellow producer Charlotte Zwerin (Gimme Shelter), executive producer Clint Eastwood and others to bring these scrolls to astonishing life. Their Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser combines the Blackwood's rare footage of Monk in studio on tour and behind the scenes with new interviews, archival photos and more to create a landmark aural and visual treat.Tunes in order of appearance: Evidence; Rhythm-a-ning; On the Bean; Round Midnight; Well, You Needn't; Bright Mississippi; Blue Monk; Trinkle, Tinkle; Rhythm-a-ning; Ugly Beauty; Ask Me Now; Just a Gigolo; Crepuscule with Nellie; I Should Care; We See; Osaka T.; Evidence; Epistrophy, Don't Blame Me; Ruby, My Dear; I Mean You; Lulu's Back in Town; Off Minor; Pannonica; Boo Boo's Birthday; Misterioso; Monk's Mood; Sweetheart of All My Dreams; Round Midnight. Year: 1988 Director: Charlotte Zwerin

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This exemplary documentary about seminal jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk reaps the benefits of multiple blessings, including the skilled editorial hand of director Charlotte Zwerin and the patronage of executive producer (and erstwhile jazz pianist) Clint Eastwood. Most vital is the use of extensive 1968 footage, shot by Michael and Christian Blackwood, documenting the sometimes moody, sometimes puckish Monk in the studio, on tour, and off stage, which on its own would make this essential jazz viewing.

In post-World War II America, few cultural upheavals matched bebop for sheer exhilaration. Spawned by jazz musicians whose paydays typically came with larger swing ensembles, bop was as much bastard as stepchild, refining the technical ambitions of its parent while breaking free of swing's formalism to play fast and loose with harmony, melody, and tempo. That mercurial spirit made heroes of high-flying, technically flamboyant players like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Monk, by contrast, was as distinctive for his silences, crafting often skeletal melodies distinguished by unexpected, skewed harmonies. At one point dubbed the "high priest of bebop," he was more Zen archer, threading notes, warping chord structure, or stabbing "wrong" keys with a seeming looseness that in hindsight sounds as precise as haiku.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser provides an intelligent portrait of this often reclusive, sometimes difficult artist, including telling glimpses of his volatility. A stormy studio session with Teo Macero, then Columbia Records' preeminent jazz producer, speaks volumes about Monk's very private approach to his muse. Perceptive interviews and glimpses of Monk's sunnier moments provide added depth, yet the real triumph is the generous catalog of classic Monk songs captured on camera. --Sam Sutherland

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Mike Douglas - Moments & Memories

Actors: Martin Luther King Jr., Bob Newhart, John Lennon, Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby
ASIN : B0012EM5CO
Sales Rank : 13484
Director : Al Greenfield
Studio : STANDING ROOM ONLY
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0032031433090
UPC : 032031433090
Release Date : December 25, 2008
Publisher : STANDING ROOM ONLY
Manufacturer : STANDING ROOM ONLY
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Label : STANDING ROOM ONLY
Running Time : 115

Product Description

- Before there was Oprah or Dr. Phil or Ellen, or any of these people, there was Mike Douglas.-
- Jay Leno, remembering Mike Douglas on The Tonight Show

Legendary daytime talk show host Mike Douglas influenced many of today's biggest stars, including Barbara Walters, Jay Leno, Regis Philbin, and Rosie O'Donnell, among many others. He ruled daytime talk from 1961 to 1982, reaching as many as 15 million people with a single show and averaging an astounding seven million viewers a day. MOMENTS AND MEMORIES takes a look back at Douglas' tenure as talk-show-host extraordinaire. The program unlocks a plethora of amazing performances and interviews from the show's vaults, including Tiger Woods' first appearance on television and Marlon Brando's personal commentary on his role as The Godfather.

Douglas' charming disposition drew in the viewers while also setting his high-profile guests at ease. Almost every major celebrity who hit it big in the 60s and 70s appeared on the show either as a guest or co-host. John Lennon and Yoko Ono co-hosted the program for a week in 1972, producing several poignant and memorable moments such as the duo's live performance of Imagine and their collaboration with Chuck Berry on the rock n roll classic Johnny B. Goode. A 2- year-old Tiger Woods also charmed the crowds like a seasoned performer, showcasing his early talent for golf while unknowingly matching wits with comedic heavyweight Bob Hope.

Priceless moments like these captured the hearts and imaginations of viewers throughout the country. But it was Douglas' innate charm that endeared him to his fans. He frequently sang on the show, crooning out classic numbers like The Men in My Little Girl s Life. Douglas also kept the show light-hearted and entertaining, frequently choosing silly and outlandish stunts to make his audience laugh. Throughout the course of the program, Douglas wrestles with Andre the Giant, talks to a chimpanzee and clowns around with a variety of comedians.

MIKE DOUGLAS MOMENTS AND MEMORIES gathers all these clips and more, taking viewers back to a bygone era filled with all the fun outfits, hairstyles, songs and attitudes of the 60s and 70s.

1. Opening
2. Getting Started with Ginny Simms and Kay Kyser
3. Cinderella
4. A New Show in Cleveland
5. The Rolling Stones
6. Mike and Legendary Entertainers (Alfred Hitchcock, Rodney Dangerfield, Bette Davis, Mel Brooks, Paul Newman, Jack Benny, Marlon Brando, Ingrid Bergman, Bill Cosby, Carol Burnett, Ron Howard)
7. Domestic Olympics (Mariette Hartley and Don Rickles)
8. Tiger Woods and Bob Hope
9. Newsmakers and Newsbreakers (Della Reese, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mike Wallace, Billie Jean King, Mother Teresa)
10. Time for Fun (Robert Goulet, Muhammad Ali & Howard Cosell, Joi Lansing & Dennis Day, Dom DeLuise, Red Skelton , Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sally Field)
11. A Week with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (Imagine, Bobby Seale, George Carlin, Jerry Rubin, Ralph Nader, Chuck Berry)
12. Introducing New Talent (Gene Simmons & Paul Stanley of KISS, Billy Crystal, Lily Tomlin, Steve Martin, George Carlin, Jay Leno, David Letterman)
13. Let's Have a Party! (Bob Hope, Tim Conway, Allen & Rossi, Dolly Parton, Professor Irwin Corey, Sammy Davis, Jr.)
14. Singing with Mike (Bill Cosby, Vic Damone, Louis Armstrong & Pearl Bailey, Bobby Darin)
15. The Men in My Little Girl's Life

Bonus Features and Clips:
Mike Douglas Biography
Ingrid Bergman
Alex Haley
Mike Douglas
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Tim Conway
Paul Newman
Johnny Cash
Ron Howard
Alfred Hitchcock
Mother Teresa

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It isn't easy boiling down a TV talk show that ran for more than 20 years and upwards of 5000 episodes into a highlight reel lasting less than an hour. The folks who compiled Mike Douglas: Moments & Memories have done that with notable success by staying true to the host's own style: i.e., focusing on the guests, respecting the audience, and providing a balance of interviews, performances, and other material guaranteed to appeal to a wide cross-section of viewers. Douglas, who died in 2006, was an up-and-coming singer (he provided the voice of Prince Charming for Disney's animated Cinderella in 1950) who moved into TV in the early '60s, and his daytime chat fest was a popular destination for celebs of every stripe, who recognized and appreciated that the confident but deferential host preferred to listen to his guests rather than compete with them and was more interested in making them look good than in promoting his own act. Moments & Memories contains clips with an extraordinary variety of visitors (from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Mother Teresa, from two-year-old Tiger Woods to Muhammad Ali, from Marlon Brando to Paul Newman, from Louis Armstrong to Kiss' Gene Simmons), but what distinguishes it from almost all DVDs of this ilk is the presence of complete musical performances, in this case by the Rolling Stones (performing "Not Fade Away" in '64, surely one of their very earliest TV appearances) and John Lennon (a nice version of "Imagine," backed by the Elephant's Memory band). Music fans will find those two gems alone worth the price of admission. Bonus features include about an hour's worth of additional interviews and Douglas bio material. --Sam Graham

The History Channel Presents Voices of Civil Rights

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From the fearless resolve of a single man to the remarkable voices of thousands marching VOICES OF CIVIL RIGHTS provides a stunning overview of one of America s greatest defining moments.VOICES OF CIVIL RIGHTS: This collection of personal narratives was created by a group of journalists photographers and videographers as they embarked on a bus trip around the country to create the largest archive of oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement.MISSISSIPPI STATE SECRETS: Go inside the shadowy operations of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission whose job was to spy on people connected to the Civil Rights Movement.CROSSING THE BRIDGE: In 1965 a line of civil rights protestors crossed the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma Alabama on a march to the capital in Montgomery. Alabama State Troopers blocked their path and the unprovoked brutality that followed shocked a nation.BIOGRAPHY: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: THE MAN AND THE DREAM: This one-of-a-kind profile uses rare footage and photos to show how King s ideas and views adapted to the rapidly changing climate of the Civil Rights Movement.BIOGRAPHY: THURGOOD MARSHALL: JUSTICE FOR ALL: As a civil rights lawyer he turned the floor of the Supreme Court into his personal battleground. As a member of the court he presided over some of the most influential decisions in American history.System Requirements:Running Time: 243 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. UPC: 733961717167 Manufacturer No: AAE-71716

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The civil rights movement in the 1950s and '60s--a tumultuous time marked by frequent tragedy and occasional triumph--is examined in this provocative two-disc, four-hour set containing five programs produced for the History Channel. The first of these, "Voices of Civil Rights," eschews the standard documentary format of narration, interviews, photos, etc. in favor of personal, firsthand reminiscences by people, black and white alike, who lived through the turbulent years when there were two very separate Americas, especially in the South. For "Negroes," there was the world in which they were reared, loved and cherished; then there was "the real world," where they were hated by whites and discrimination was a bitter fact of daily life. Major events and issues like the struggles for school integration and voter registration, the killing of Medgar Evers, and the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror are covered, but it's the anecdotal accounts of these exceptionally well-spoken people that really drive them home. The extraordinary tale of the KKK's atrocities against the family of Vernon Dahmer, for instance, is told not only by the victims but by one of the Klansmen who participated. Repentant and deeply ashamed to this day, the latter ultimately testified in court against his "brethren"; later, while serving his own sentence, he was visited in prison and forgiven by the very people whose lives he had shattered.

The remaining documentaries on the first disc detail the villainous tactics of the "Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission" (a government-appointed agency whose mission was to use whatever was needed--propaganda, threats, actual violence--to suppress the civil rights movement in that state), and the events surrounding March 7, 1965, the "bloody Sunday" when marchers in Selma, Alabama were viciously attacked by the local police. These are stories that evoke grim memories of folks like Sheriffs Jim Clark and Bull Connor, and racist governors Ross Barnett (Mississippi) and George Wallace (Alabama), all of them driven by a flammable combination of ignorance, hubris, and the fear of losing a preeminence they'd done nothing to earn. But it was a time that also witnessed the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a call to action by President Lyndon Johnson, who knew there was something very wrong about a country where young black people could fight in Vietnam but were denied the right to vote at home. Disc Two includes a biography of King, depicting a "reluctant hero... who raged beneath the weight of his burden," a leader who did not seek his position but was chosen for it. A second bio details the life and work of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American justice to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither disc contains any bonus features. --Sam Graham

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Go beyond the dream to discover the man.

Forty years after Martin Luther King s assassination, HISTORY, with newsman Tom Brokaw, takes viewers through the extraordinary life and times of America's civil rights visionary. KING goes beyond the legend to portray the man, the questions, the myths and, most importantly, the relevance of Dr. King s message in today s world. Includes a rare interview with his son, Martin Luther King III, as well as associates from the civil rights campaigns and contemporary figures such as former President Bill Clinton, Condaleezza Rice, Bono, Forest Whitaker, Chuck D and others.

Browse African American Heritage Online

The Weather Underground

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Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have a Dream

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The U.S. vs. John Lennon

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Naqoyqatsi

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Thelonious Monk - Straight No Chaser

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Mike Douglas - Moments & Memories

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The History Channel Presents Voices of Civil Rights

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Citizen King

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The Search for Robert Johnson

King (History Channel)

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