Documentaries

Marlon Riggs's Emmy-winning 1987 documentary exposes the racist caricatures — Mammy, Sambo, Coon, Pickaninny, Brute — that permeated American popular culture from the 1820s through the Civil Rights era, showing how these images were deliberately constructed to justify slavery and segregation. Narrated by Esther Rolle. Available on Criterion Channel.

The definitive 20-episode documentary on America's civil rights movement, produced by Henry Hampton's Blackside Inc. and narrated by Julian Bond. Told from the ground up through participants' own voices, it spans Montgomery to present-day racial justice. Series 3 premiered on HBO in February 2025.

Spike Lee's first feature documentary honors the four Black girls — Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley — murdered in the 1963 KKK bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. Intimate family interviews and archival footage mourn individual lives while exposing the white supremacist culture that made the attack possible.

A two-part 2025 HBO documentary tracing Black representation on television from early stereotypes to today's golden age of Black storytelling. Executive produced by Issa Rae, it features Oprah Winfrey, Shonda Rhimes, Tyler Perry, and Ava DuVernay reflecting on the decades-long battle to own their own narratives. Stream on Max.

Emmy-winning 2023 six-part Hulu docuseries hosted by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. Expands her landmark New York Times project by examining how slavery's legacy shapes contemporary democracy, capitalism, policing, and culture. Executive produced with Oprah Winfrey.

A four-part 2021 CNN/HBO docuseries about Beulah Mae Donald, the Alabama mother who successfully sued the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy after they lynched her teenage son Michael in 1981. Co-executive produced by Harvard's Cornell William Brooks. One of the great unsung stories of civil rights resistance.