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A One hour PBS documentary for Independent Lens 2009-2010 Season
Broadcast, Independent Lens, PBS, 2009-2010.
Check local listings. Distribution available 2009.
Watch an excerpt
Purchase the DVD - Educational & Institutional only
A beautifully crafted story about how anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits re-defined black history, making it possible for a people formerly despised as “Negroes” to pride themselves as African-Americans. Herskovits himself was not black; he was a white man of Jewish ancestry. But he acquired the power to re-make the historical understanding of black people, and in the process engaged in conflicts with black scholars and white institutions of the day and helped to propel African Americans’ struggle against white supremacy.
Rarely seen archival footage, provocative animation, and unique photo montage re-enactments propel the story and interviews with leading scholars of race and culture forward. Herskovits At The Heart of Blackness asks viewers to consider the fundamental idea: who has the power to describe, define, and, ultimately, know the contours ofhuman cultural history, and to what end. Funding from ITVS, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation and others.
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Co-Production of California Newsreel and Vital Pictures Inc., Broadcast 2008
A Four-Hour PBS Series and National Public Engagement Campaign
Winner, DuPont Columbia Award in Television and News
Henry Hampton Award from the Council on Foundations
Visit the Unnatural Causes Website
Watch the promo
Of all the Western democracies, America ranks lowest in life expectancy and highest in infant mortality – key indicators of health. And of all the Western democracies, the gap between the richest and everyone else in America is the greatest. Unnatural Causes painstakingly illustrates the link between economic and racial inequality and health – from the neighborhoods of Louisville, Kentucky to the factories of Michigan, from Native American reservations in Arizona to the upper middle class lives of black women in Atlanta. The impact of inequality – and its cost – takes on greater potency a year after the series’ broadcast as the American economy spirals downward and places the middle class and poor in even greater jeopardy. Over 15,000 community screenings of Unnatural Causes have taken place since its broadcast, bringing together public health , housing and economic development experts and community activists. Each screening generates relationships and action steps to confront health issues at the grass roots – and to empower communities to make their voices heard at the national policy level.
Funders: The CPB Minority Consortium, Ford Foundation, The MacArthur Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the California Endowment and others. |
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A Three-Part Documentary Series
Executive Producer: Larry Adelman. A Production of California Newsreel
Episode Producers: Christine Herbes-Sommers, Tracy Heather Strain, Llewellyn M. Smith
Visit the Race Website
Watch an excerpt
RACE: THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION challenges one of our most fundamental beliefs: that humans come divided into a few distinct biological groups. And that those groups fall on a hierarchy of positive and negative characteristics. This definitive three part series is an eye-opening tale of how what we assume to be normal, commonsense, even scientific is actually shaped by our history, social and political institutions and cultural beliefs. And that we hold these beliefs to our collective peril.
RACE is held now in thousands of libraries across the country. With its in-depth curriculum materials and website, it is widely used in high school, college and medical schools. It continues to be screened among communities to break down barriers to social participation and engagement.
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