Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North (2008)

Spartacus

The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.

The American Miracle

Journeys through some of the most significant events in America's rise to power, reliving the improbabilities that demonstrate what the Founders always believed: that events unfolded according to a master plan.

Town Destroyer

Controversy erupts over a New-Deal-era mural of the namesake of San Francisco’s George Washington High School. The thirteen-panel artwork "The Life of Washington" by Victor Arnautoff offers a view of the Founding Father both celebratory and critical, referencing his involvements in slavery and Native American genocide.

Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten

Learn about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, on the one hundredth anniversary of the crime, and how the community of Tulsa is coming to terms with its past, present, and future.

Malcolm X

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.

Amistad

In 1839, the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They are then held prisoner in Connecticut, and their release becomes the subject of heated debate. Freed slave Theodore Joadson wants Cinque and the others exonerated and recruits property lawyer Roger Baldwin to help his case. Eventually, John Quincy Adams also becomes an ally.

The Ten Commandments

Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.

Glory

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

Land of Liberty

This film tells the history of the United States from pre-Revolution through 1939.

Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden

The History Channel marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11 with a new groundbreaking documentary about the biggest manhunt in human history. This documentary draws on interviews and stories told in the Museum's special exhibition of the same name, and features interviews with Jan Seidler Ramirez, chief curator and executive vice president of collections, to tell the sweeping tale, linking policy, intelligence, and military decision-making as they converged on a mysterious compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The Price of Protest

United States, September 1st, 2016. American football player Colin Kaepernick kneels during the national anthem, protesting police brutality against black people. Part of the population regards the gesture as an unacceptable affront to the flag. Later, he loses his place on his team. Today, however, he is considered by many as a true hero.

Selma

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

The Salt of the Earth

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Apocalypto

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

The Warrior

In 1375, China was in chaos between Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. Coryo (an ancient kingdom of Korea then) sent a delegation of many diplomats, soldiers and a silent slave to make peace with the new Chinese government. However, this delegation got charged as spies and sent in exile to a remote desert.

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

The story of Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavyweight boxing champion.

Money as Debt

Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created

Nickel Boys

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.

The Tuskegee Airmen

During the Second World War, a special project is begun by the US Army Air Corps to integrate African American pilots into the Fighter Pilot Program. Known as the "Tuskegee Airman" for the name of the airbase at which they were trained, these men were forced to constantly endure harassement, prejudice, and much behind the scenes politics until at last they were able to prove themselves in combat.

Revolta dos Malês

Salvador, Bahia, January 1835. After more than a decade of hard work, Guilhermina, 27, a slave of Muslim origin, finally gets the resources to buy her manumission, as well as that of Teresa, 11, her teenage daughter. But, contrary to an old promise, his “lord”, farmer Souza Velho, refuses to sell the girl's letter. When Pacific Licutan, Salvador's most esteemed Islamic leadership, is arrested by the Bahian authorities, the Muslim community goes into a boiling state and begins to articulate a jihad. In desperation, Guilhermina sees in the uprising the only way to win her daughter's freedom.

Stonebreakers

In a year of uprisings and political unrest, Stonebreakers documents the fights around monuments in the United States and explores the shifting landscapes of the nation's historical memory.

Free State of Jones

In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.

The Times of Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.

Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street

This documentary celebrates the Black cultural renaissance that existed in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, OK, and investigates the 100-year-old race massacre that left an indelible, though hidden stain on American history.

Denzel Washington: A Model American

In 30 years of a deeply committed career and 50 roles, Denzel Washington, double-Oscar winner, placed the figure of the Black man in all its complexity at the heart of the American paradoxes: from Black activist, rebel soldier to gangster torn between violence and charity. Voted best actor of the 21st century by the New York Times a few months ago, Denzel Washington, 65, has risen to the top of American cinema. As an Actor, director and producer, he has shaken up a "color line" as immutable as it is subtle. Often identified with his characters, he reveals himself to be disconcerting and paradoxical. As if he were holding up a mirror to America in which all of its contradictions and failings were reflected. A documentary that chronicles the extraordinary career of the world-renowned African-American actor.

Our Faces Have Been Taken Away

The film tells the story of modern slavery from the perspective of the only Russian organization carrying out mass rescue missions both within the country and abroad.

Searching for Skylab, America's Forgotten Triumph

The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting these pieces back together and re-tracing the Skylab program back to its very conception reveals the cornerstone of human space exploration.

Band of Angels

Living in Kentucky prior to the Civil War, Amantha Starr is a privileged young woman. Her widowed father, a wealthy plantation owner, dotes on her and sends her to the best schools. When he dies suddenly Amantha's world is turned upside down. She learns that her father had been living on borrowed money and that her mother was actually a slave and her father's mistress.

The Six Triple Eight

During World War II, the US Army's only all-Black, all-women battalion takes on an impossible mission: sorting through a three-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail that hadn't been delivered to American soldiers and finish within six months.

Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris

In 1970, a British film crew set out to make a straightforward literary portrait of James Baldwin set in Paris, insisting on setting aside his political activism. Baldwin bristled at their questions, and the result is a fascinating, confrontational, often uncomfortable butting of heads between the filmmakers and their subject, in which the author visits the Bastille and other Parisian landmarks and reflects on revolution, colonialism, and what it means to be a Black expatriate in Europe.

The Long Walk Home

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King.

Sankofa

On a photo shoot in Ghana, an American model slips back in time, becomes enslaved on a plantation and bears witness to the agony of her ancestral past.