Jackie Robinson
1919 - 1972Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush
Jackie Robinson, Liev Schreiber
The Brooklyn Dodgers, from Jackie Robinson's breaking baseball's color barrier to their move to Los Angeles, a dozen years later. The Dodgers epitomize the diverse working-class, in contrast with the white uptown Yankees, and come oh-so-close to winning the World Series before it finally happens in 1955. By then, Ebbets Field is crumbling, ticket sales are off, fans have moved to the suburbs, and Robert Moses is blocking Walter O'Malley's plan to build a stadium at the terminus of the Long Island Railroad. When Los Angeles makes O'Malley an offer he can't refuse, an era comes to an end: in 1958 the Dodgers and cross-town-rival Giants go West, leaving the ghosts of Flatbush.
Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush
Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist
Alexandra Isles
Morgan Freeman, Rosetta LeNoire
A documentary look at the confluence of the Red scare, McCarthyism, and blacklists with the post-war activism by African Americans seeking more and better roles on radio, television, and stage. It begins in Harlem, measures the impact of Paul Robeson and the campaign to bring him down, looks at the role of HUAC, J. Edgar Hoover and of journalists such as Ed Sullivan, and ends with a tribute to Canada Lee. Throughout are interviews with men and women who were there, including Dick Campbell of the Rose McLendon Players and Fredrick O'Neal of the American Negro Theatre. In the 1940s and 1950s, anti-Communism was one more tool to maintain Jim Crow and to keep down African-Americans.
Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist
Malcolm X
Spike Lee
Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett
A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.
Malcolm X
