Movies: Ossie Davis

A young, idealistic man returns home to the plantation where he grew up in servitude. With him, he brings his fiance, Lutiebelle, in hopes of convincing the plantation owner that she is really his cousin in order to secure the family inheritance. To ...

Ossie Davis, Terry McMillan, Horace Julian Bond, Isaac Hayes, Dionne Warwick and many others share their inspiring stories of success in the first installment of this series about African-American history makers, including civil rights leaders, actor...

Narrated by actress Alfre Woodard, this trenchant, eye-opening doc traces the radical civil rights leader’s life from his tumultuous childhood, through his rise in the ranks of the Nation of Islam, to his 1965 assassination....

Ossie Davis narrates a history of "race films," films made before 1950 which catered to a primarily black audience....

A documentary, combining archival material and live interviews with Marcus Garvey, Jr., and others, which introduces the life and work of the pioneer Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey....

An African dictator (Wole Soyinka) needs to convince the former king (Rashidi Onikoyi) to legitimize his reign by offering him the ceremonial yam at the upcoming harvest festival....

Louis Gossett Jr. takes viewers through a special documentary celebration of the groundbreaking achievements of African-American performers and their contributions to Hollywood filmmaking. Spectacular film clips, rare behind-the-scenes footage, archi...

The story of Leroy "Satchel" Paige, the legendary pitcher, from his barnstorming days in the 1920s, hoping to break into organized "negro" baseball, to his emergence at age 43 in the major leagues with the Cleveland Indians the year after Jackie Robi...

"The Fall" depicts certain scenes in New York City between October 1967 and March 1968, shot by the independent filmmaker, Peter Whitehead. It is a very personal documentary, and Whitehead appears in a large number of scenes, and we hear his lengthy ...

From the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning PBS series NEIGHBORHOODS: THE HIDDEN CITIES OF SAN FRANCISCO comes the remarkable story of San Francisco's Fillmore District. Remembered today mainly for its rock & roll auditorium, the Fillmore District is one...

Paul Robeson: Here I Stand presents the life and achievements of an extraordinary man. Athlete, singer, and scholar, Robeson was also a charismatic champion of the rights of the poor working man, the disfranchised and people of color. He led a life i...

White abolitionist John Brown and twenty of his men attempt to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Based on true events....

A documentary filmed at Moton Field in Tuskegee Alabama, home to the airmen of the 99th Fighter Squadron. They were the first African American fighter pilots trained to fly in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Nearly 1,000 pilots trained i...

The true story of the only African-American crew to take a Navy warship into combat in World War II....

An interview/overview on the influential careers of Gordon Parks, Ossie Davis, and Melvin Van Peebles....

Produced in collaboration with Malcolm X and narrated by Ossie Davis, this call to arms layers revolutionary text from multiple sources with gritty, shot-on-the-streets-of-New York footage of African-American struggle. A forgotten masterpiece from ra...

Join tennis greats John McEnroe and Billie Jean King and world leader Nelson Mandela as they pay homage to the life and work of Arthur Ashe, the sports legend who transcended his athletic gifts and grew to become one of the most inspirational celebri...

The work of sculptor Inge Hardison is the subject of this beautiful short portrait of an artist. Hardison is perhaps best known for "Negro Giants in History," her important series of busts made during the early 1960s. Hands of Inge was edited by Hort...

Goin’ Back to T-Town tells the story of Greenwood, an extraordinary Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that prospered during the 1920s and 30s despite rampant and hostile segregation. Torn apart in 1921 by one of the worst racially-motivated massacr...

The Black middle class, torn between white goals and Black needs, are examined by producers William Greaves and William Branch in a 90-minute NET Journal documentary....