PBS Celebrates Black History Month With a Slate of Special Programming

February 1-28, 2007

    ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- PBS broadcasts
 programming created by and about African Americans year-round, from drama
 to public affairs to history to independent film. In celebration of Black
 History Month, February 2007, PBS will broadcast a lineup of new and encore
 presentations honoring and exploring African-American history.
     NOVA "Forgotten Genius" tells the story of one of the great African-
 American scientists of the 20th century -- Percy Julian. INDEPENDENT LENS
 "Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life" profiles Duke Ellington's co-composer,
 arranger and right-hand man. "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" is an
 in-depth look, through the lens of former college star athlete Byron Hurt,
 at the sexism, violence and homophobia in rap music and hip-hop culture.
 Also new in February is an examination of the role that Catholic nuns
 played in the Selma-to- Montgomery voting rights marches of 1965 in SISTERS
 OF SELMA: BEARING WITNESS FOR CHANGE. THE STORY OF OSCAR BROWN JR., a new
 profile of the legendary performer and producer of the landmark musical
 Opportunity Please Knock, will also air. Encore presentations include
 DEFORD BAILEY: A LEGEND LOST, AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES and AMERICAN
 EXPERIENCE "Eyes on the Prize."
     First-rate programming with a depth and breadth that can only be found
 on PBS, these programs document and examine the rich heritage and cultural
 contributions of African Americans.
     Broadcast Premieres
 
     NOVA "Forgotten Genius" (New)
     Tuesday, February 6, 2007, 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET
     His house was firebombed. A scandalous affair got him fired in the
 middle of the Depression. The doors of academia were slammed in his face,
 since no one expected an African American to rise higher than teaching high
 school. Yet Percy Julian overcame every obstacle to become a world-class
 scientist, self- made millionaire and civil rights pioneer. NOVA presents
 his dramatic life story in a two-hour "Lives in Science" biography.
 http://www.pbs.org/nova
     INDEPENDENT LENS "Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life" (New)
     Tuesday, February 6, 2007, 10:00-11:30 p.m. ET
     As Duke Ellington's co-composer, arranger and right-hand man, Billy
 Strayhorn wrote some of the greatest American music of the 20th century.
 But as a gay man in the 40s and 50s, Strayhorn had to lead a discreet
 existence, while Ellington played to thunderous applause on center stage.
 This film tells the story of the unheralded man who changed jazz and
 popular music forever, maintaining artistic and personal integrity while
 challenging prejudice along the way. By Robert Levi.
 http://www.pbs.org/independentlens
     THE SUPREME COURT "A Nation of Liberties" (New)
     Wednesday, February 7, 2007, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET
     "A Nation of Liberties" focuses on the Supreme Court's reaction to
 state and federal legislation on Bill of Rights freedoms, with special
 attention to the explosion of civil rights cases from the early 1940s to
 the present. The program highlights the Warren Court as it confronted the
 issues of race, gender and religion in the post-war period, when six newly
 appointed justices were just beginning to find their way on the Court. Over
 the next quarter- century, the belief in individual freedoms and rights
 would push the nation, and the Supreme Court, towards a new agenda.
 http://www.pbs.org/supremecourt
     AMERICAN EXPERIENCE "New Orleans" (New)
     Monday, February 12, 2007, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET
     From director Stephen Ives and writer Michelle Ferrari comes a
 fascinating portrait of one of America's most distinctive and beloved
 cities: a small French settlement surrounded by water that ultimately would
 become the home of America's biggest party, Mardi Gras, and its most
 original art form, jazz; the site of explosive struggles with both
 integration and segregation, and a proving ground for national ideas about
 race, class and equality; a mirror that reflects both the best and the
 worst in America. Jeffrey Wright narrates.
 http://www.pbs.org/amex/neworleans
     INDEPENDENT LENS "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes"(New)
     Tuesday, February 20, 2007, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET
     This film takes an in-depth look at machismo in rap music and hip-hop
 culture -- where creative genius, poetic beauty and mad beats collide with
 misogyny, violence and homophobia. By Byron Hurt.
 http://www.pbs.org/independentlens
     THE 9TH ANNUAL SPHINX COMPETITION (New)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     THE 9TH ANNUAL SPHINX COMPETITION is a classical music competition
 featuring finals performances from the 9th Annual Sphinx Competition
 Concert. The competitors, all Hispanic and African-American, are
 accompanied by an orchestra composed entirely of Hispanic and black
 musicians. This program features performances from the three junior
 division finalists and the senior division laureate.
     SISTERS OF SELMA: BEARING WITNESS FOR CHANGE (New)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     This program is an unabashedly spiritual take on the Selma, Alabama,
 voting rights marches of 1965 from some of its unsung foot soldiers --
 Catholic nuns. Following the violence of "Bloody Sunday," sisters from
 around the country answered Dr. Martin Luther King's call to join the
 protests in Selma. Never before in American history had avowed Catholic
 women made so public a political statement. Risking personal safety to
 bring change, the sisters found themselves being changed in turn -- and
 they tell viewers how. Selma blacks testify about the importance of
 Catholic clergy in their lives, and explain why it took until the year 2000
 for them to become fully enfranchised. Newfound dramatic archival footage
 carries much of the story. In 2003, director Jayasri Hart reunited the nuns
 to let them view themselves and the protests on tape for the first time.
 Their recorded reactions help narrate the film. Other Selmians, Catholic
 and Protestant, white and black, give their views on the nuns'
 contributions to history.
     THE STORY OF OSCAR BROWN JR. (New)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     This documentary focuses on Chicago native Oscar Brown Jr.'s work as a
 writer and performer for over a half a century. Starting at the tender age
 of 15 he was a radio performer with the network series "Secret City." He
 also was a key player in Richard Durham's "Destination Freedom: Black Radio
 Days" series from 1948-1950. Brown's musical explorations included sharing
 the bill with such greats as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane,
 Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderly. His one-man show Oscar Brown Jr.
 Entertains led one critic to hail him as "a musical genius." In 1967, he
 produced the musical Opportunity Please Knock in conjunction with a huge
 youth gang known as the Blackstone Rangers and gained national recognition
 when gang members appeared on the Smothers Brothers CBS television show. He
 also hosted the popular PBS television show FROM JUMP STREET - THE STORY OF
 BLACK MUSIC.
     Encore Presentations
 
     DEFORD BAILEY: A LEGEND LOST (Encore)
     Sunday, February 4, 2007, 10:30-11:00 p.m. ET
     Harmonica virtuoso DeFord Bailey was one of the first stars of the
 Grand Ole Opry. Yet history knows almost nothing of this lost legend. In
 the 1930s, at the height of Jim Crow, rising country stars like Bill Monroe
 and Roy Acuff would take DeFord on the road because they knew that his name
 and talent would draw crowds. Because his medium was radio, listeners never
 knew that DeFord was black until they saw him live. He would often
 sacrifice comfort, dignity and safety to travel and perform. Considered one
 of the most unexplained events in Grand Ole Opry history, DeFord left the
 stage in the early 1940s and refused to perform professionally. This
 half-hour documentary tells the story of DeFord's career and early
 departure from the stage, and reveals how black musicians have influenced
 many legends of country music. Lou Rawls narrates.
 http://www.pbs.org/deford
     AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES (Encore)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., W.E.B. DuBois Professor of
 the Humanities and Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and
 African American Research at Harvard University, takes Alex Haley's Roots
 saga to a whole new level. Using genealogy and DNA science, Dr. Gates tells
 the personal stories of eight accomplished African Americans -- a
 neurosurgeon, a TV host, an astronaut, a music entrepreneur, a sociologist,
 a movie star, a minister and a comedian -- tracing their roots through
 American history and back to Africa. http://www.pbs.org/aalives
     AMERICA BEYOND THE COLOR LINE WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. (Encore)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     Henry Louis Gates Jr., W.E.B. DuBois Professor of the Humanities and
 Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American
 Research at Harvard University, travels the length and breadth of the
 United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the
 new century. In four programs, Gates travels to four different parts of
 America -- the East Coast, the deep South, inner-city Chicago and
 Hollywood. He explores this rich and diverse landscape, social as well as
 geographic, and meets the people who are defining black America, from the
 most famous and influential to those at the grassroots.
     AMERICAN EXPERIENCE "Eyes on the Prize" (Encore)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     The groundbreaking documentary series examining America's civil rights
 years returns to public television as part of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Covering
 the period from the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money,
 Mississippi, and the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott through school
 desegregation, the march from Selma to Montgomery and the Voting Rights
 Act, "Eyes on the Prize" is considered the definitive history of this
 formative time in the nation's life. Narrated by Julian Bond, the acclaimed
 six-hour production includes interviews with key figures of the movement,
 stirring music from Bernice Johnson Reagon (founder of Sweet Honey in the
 Rock) and rare archival footage of the struggle to make America be America
 for all her people. http://www.pbs.org/eyesontheprize
     FANNIE LOU HAMER: COURAGE AND FAITH (Encore)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     Using archival footage and interviews with those who knew her well and
 were affected by her actions, this program chronicles the extraordinary
 life of Fannie Lou Hamer and introduces her to a new, younger generation.
 Mrs. Hamer attended the 1964 Democratic National Convention as a member of
 the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and challenged the all-white
 Mississippi delegation. Many credit her presence at the convention as the
 impetus for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Interviews include
 Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC); Dorothy Height, president of
 the National Council of Negro Women; Rutgers University history professor
 Clement Price; and numerous members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
 Party. Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock,
 narrates.
     P.O.V. "Chisholm '72 - Unbought & Unbossed" (Encore)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     This documentary recaptures the times and spirit of a watershed event
 in American politics, when Shirley Chisholm, an African-American woman,
 dared to take an equal place on the presidential dais. The New York
 Democratic congresswoman's bid engendered strong and sometimes bigoted
 opposition, setting off currents that affect American politics and social
 perceptions to this day. http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/chisholm/
     SHARED HISTORY (Encore)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     SHARED HISTORY is the intimate story of the relationship between two
 families whose connection was forged in slavery and has endured to the
 present. The filmmaker, the great-great-granddaughter of a slave owner, and
 Rhonda Kearse, a descendant of one of the enslaved families, seek to
 understand and reconcile the reality of slavery with the shared lives and
 affections between the families.
     SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA (Encore)
     February 2007 (check local listings)
     This groundbreaking series chronicles the institution of American
 slavery from its origins in 1619 -- when English settlers in Virginia
 purchased 20 Africans from Dutch traders -- through the arrival of the
 first 11 slaves in the northern colonies (in Dutch New Amsterdam), the
 American Revolution, the Civil War, the adoption of the 13th Amendment and
 Reconstruction. With such unprecedented breadth come entirely new
 perspectives on and facts about slavery. These new perspectives challenge
 many long-held notions (such as the idea that slavery was strictly a
 southern institution; it was, in fact, a national institution) and
 highlight the contradictions of a country that was founded on the principle
 of "liberty and justice for all" but embraced slavery. Morgan Freeman
 narrates. http://www.pbs.org/slavery
     About PBS
     PBS is a media enterprise that serves 354 public noncommercial
 television stations and reaches almost 90 million people each week through
 on-air and online content. Bringing diverse viewpoints to television and
 the Internet, PBS provides high-quality documentary and dramatic
 entertainment, and consistently dominates the most prestigious award
 competitions. PBS is a leading provider of educational materials for K-12
 teachers, and offers a broad array of other educational services. PBS'
 premier kids' TV programming and Web site, PBS KIDS Online
 (http://www.pbskids.org), continue to be parents' and teachers' most
 trusted learning environments for children. More information about PBS is
 available at http://www.pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org Web sites on
 the Internet.
 
 

SOURCE PBS