South to Black Power

A powerful documentary starring Morgan Freeman about the genesis of The Blues in the South and the music spreading around the world. Morgan Freeman shares his story of his experience of growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi and his love for the Blues.

The untold true story: The rise and fall of the greatest funk band ever, Parliament Funkadelic.

Funk legend Sly Stone disappeared from the limelight for more than 20 years. Musicians and the media tried to find the recluse but failed. In 2005 Willem Alkema started searching for Sly. Sly didn't want to be found or filmed, but Willem didn't give up and finally followed Sly in his first steps on stage in decades.

The history of warfare as it relates to global Black society, broken down into 7 chapters that examines the ways the system of racism wages warfare from a historical, psychological, sexual, biological, health, educational, and military perspective.

Mike Tyson escaped a life of poverty and petty crime to make a name for himself, becoming the youngest Heavyweight Champion of the World and a household name—but his rise was followed by a very public fall. In this remarkably candid portrait, the boxer addresses his controversial past, including the rape charge that sent him to prison and his struggles with substance abuse, while also detailing his ultimate recovery and comeback.

Don Letts's hilarious and colourful profile of the godfather of funk, whose 50-year career has defined the genre. From his 1950s days running a doo-wop group out of the back of his barber store, through the madness of the monster Parliament/Funkadelic machine of the 70s to his late 90s hip-hop collaborations with Dre and Snoop, George Clinton has inspired generations of imitators. Contributors include Outkast's Andre 3000 and Macy Gray.

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.

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.

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.

Summer 2017, a string of brutal police killings of young African American men has sent shockwaves throughout the country. A Black community in the American South tries to cope with the lingering effects of the past and navigate their place in a country that is not on their side. Meanwhile, the Black Panthers prepare a large-scale protest against police brutality.

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."