Zora Neale Hurston, path-breaking novelist, pioneering anthropologist and one of the first black women to enter the American literary canon (*Their Eyes Were Watching God*), established the African American vernacular as one of the most vital, inventive voices in American literature. This definitive film biography, eighteen years in the making, portrays Zora in all her complexity: gifted, flamboyant, and controversial but always fiercely original....

A young farm girl tries to catch her favorite chicken, until she learns something about the hen that makes her change her ways. Meet one smart chicken chaser. She can catch any chicken on her grandmother's farm except one - the elusive Miss Hen. In a hilarious battle of wits, the spirited narrator regales readers with her campaign to catch Miss Hen, but this chicken is "fast as a mosquito buzzing and quick as a fleabite." Our chicken chaser has her...

On December 2, 1966, director Shirley Clarke and a miniscule film crew gathered in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea. Bestowed for twelve hours with the one-and-only Jason Holliday, Clarke confronted the iconic performer about his good times and bad behavior as a gay hustler, on-and-off houseboy and aspiring cabaret performer. As the cameras rolled and Holliday spun tales, sang songs and donned costumes through the night, a mesmerizing portrait formed...

From the initial sparks of revolution in Boston to the climactic Siege of Yorktown, this special paints a comprehensive picture of the African American experience during the Revolutionary War. 

The setting is simple, but the stories, songs, and poems of Osceola Mays are remarkable indeed. In them, the past is recounted with a reverent intensity that expresses the deeply felt emotions of three generations of black Texans. The harsh realities of segregation and discrimination are juxtaposed with the importance of family and community life in these spirituals and poems learned by Osceola Mays from her mother, Azalene Douglas, and her grandmother,...

Ashley Bryan is a 94-year-old creative wonder who skips and jumps in his heart like a child. He served in a World War II all-Black battalion and experienced the D-Day and the racism of a segregated Army. As a result he dedicated his life to creating beauty and joy, spreading love and awe through his art. He's a poet/illustrator of over 50 award-winning children's books, former professor at Dartmouth College, and maker of magical puppets and sea glass...

In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as...

The Mothers meets An American Marriage in this dazzling debut novel about mothers and daughters, identity and family, and how the relationships that sustain you can also be the ones that consume you. The Butler family has had their share of trials, as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest, but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned...

CHAMPAGNE is the true story of a young teenage girl whose mother is incarcerated for murder. Living in a Catholic Children's home run by an order of nuns, she provides poignant commentary about her mother, her own situation, and her outlook for the future. Starring the voice of the real-life Champagne, this award-winning film shows how hope can spring forth even in the most challenging of times. Featuring the voices by Ruby Dee and Linda Lavin.

The inspiring true story of African American inventor Garrett Morgan. As a young boy, Garrett didn't know what he was good at. He always seems to be getting into trouble. Upon moving to the big city, Garrett witnesses a series of collisions. His creative thinking and imagination lead him to invent the traffic signal. Narrated by Queen Latifah, GARRETT'S GIFT teaches us that we are all given a gift, but what’s most important is that we give that...