Yearly Archives: 2019

Explore the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though tragically short-lived, this bold democratic experiment was, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, a ‘brief moment in the sun’ for African Americans, when they could advance, and achieve, education, exercise their right to vote, and run for and win public office. The first two hours of the series will center on this pivotal decade following the rebellion, charting black progress and highlighting the accomplishments of the many political leaders who emerged to usher their communities into this new era of freedom.

The series’ second half will look beyond that hopeful decade, when the arc of history bent backwards. It became increasingly clear that many former Confederates were never willingly going to accept this new social order and that the federal government was not prepared to provide African Americans with consistent or enduring protection of their new rights. While tracing the unraveling of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow segregation in the closing years of the nineteenth century, we will look at the myriad ways in which black people continued to acquire land, build institutions, and strengthen communities amidst increasing racial violence and repression. Less than thirty years after black men filled state legislatures, one by one, like dominoes tumbling the Southern states began drastically restricting the vote while drawing a stark color line that divided white and black America. The series will conclude with a focus on both the flowering of African American art, music, literature, and culture as tools of resistance in the struggle against Jim Crow racism and the surge of political activism that marked the launch of such iconic civil rights organizations as the National Association of Colored Women, the Niagara Movement, and the NAACP, all at a time when black political power had been blunted and the dream of an interracial democracy seemed impossibly out of reach.

• #101 – airs 4/9 at 9 p.m.
• #102 – airs 4/16 at 9 p.m.

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Robert Penn Warren is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry and was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 1986. His 1946 novel about political corruption, All the King’s Men, was translated into an Academy Award winning film. The documentary explores the life and career of one of our nation’s most acclaimed writers and features previously unreleased home movie footage of the author and his family.

Airs 4/19 at 3-4 a.m.

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Sea Change uses the coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia to exemplify the challenges of Climate Change, sea level rise, rising salinities, weather extremes and other changes that includes local, state, regional and national implications. The effects of Climate Change are far ranging including property and land loss, human health impacts and significant economic and sea life impacts. The impacts examined in this program are not unique to Georgia and South Carolina but reflect the far reaching implications of Climate Change on the entire Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts.

Airs 4/9 at 2-3 a.m. (4/23 at 2-3 a.m.)

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• #2014 “The Providers” –  Set against the backdrop of the physician shortage and opioid epidemic in rural America, The Providers follows three healthcare providers in northern New Mexico. They work at El Centro, a group of safety-net clinics that offer care to all who walk through the doors. Amidst personal struggles that reflect those of their patients, the journeys of the providers unfold as they work to reach rural Americans who would otherwise be left out of the healthcare system. With intimate access, the documentary shows the transformative power of providers’ relationships with underserved patients. Airs 4/8 at 10 p.m.
• #1715 “My Nazi Legacy” –  Explores the relationship between two men, each the sons of high-ranking Nazi officials, and internationally renowned British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, whose family perished in the Holocaust. Sands met Niklas Frank and Horst van Wächter while researching his book East West Street, and as the three travel together on an emotional journey through Europe and the past, the film explores how each of them cope with their own devastating family history. Airs 4/14 at 11 p.m.
• #2015 “Charm City” – Filmed during three years of unparalleled violence in Baltimore, Charm City delivers a powerfully candid portrait of those on the frontlines. With grit, fury, and compassion, a group of police, citizens, community leaders and government officials grapple with the consequences of violence and try to reclaim their city’s future. Airs 4/22 at 10 p.m.

Independent Lens Website

The Providers Trailer

My Nazi Legacy Trailer

Charm City Trailer

Take a journey into the rich sensory experience of autism. Imagine a world where words taste and thoughts feel, where sounds swell with color and leaves on trees change tones visible to the naked eye, and where eye contact with another can cause physical pain. Spectrum: A Story of the Mind explores autism through the lens of diverse characters on the spectrum.

Airs 4/6 at 1:30 p.m.

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The word “Karamu” comes from a Swahili word meaning “a place of joyful gatherings.” For the past 100 years, the Karamu House in Cleveland, Ohio – the oldest African-American theater in the United States – has lived up to its name, serving as a community center for the arts and maintaining a legacy of innovation and diversity. Narrated by James Pickens, Jr. from ABC television’s Grey’s Anatomy, KARAMU: 100 YEARS IN THE HOUSE is a 30-minute documentary which tells the story behind this important theater in America’s arts and culture history. Karamu House has come to be known as a respected training ground and launching pad for many nationally known actors, playwrights and artists, including poet and playwright Langston Hughes, and author, folklorist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. The film shows how the theater’s past parallels African-American history over the past 100 years, and even how it directly intersected with the civil rights movement when it sent busloads of activists to march on Washington.

Airs 4/5 at 3-3:30 a.m.

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