PBS and WETA today announced Making Black America: Through The Grapevine, a four-part series from executive producer, host and writer Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., will premiere in Fall 2022 on PBS stations nationwide.
In this latest series from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and documentarian, Gates and director Stacey L. Holman chronicle the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” The series recounts the establishment of the Prince Hall Masons in 1775 through the formation of all-Black towns and business districts, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, destinations for leisure, and the social media phenomenon of Black Twitter. Gates sits with noted scholars, politicians, cultural leaders, and old friends to discuss this world behind the color line and what it looks like today. Making Black America takes viewers into an extraordinary world that showcased Black people’s ability to collectively prosper, defy white supremacy and define Blackness in ways that transformed America itself.
In Making Black America, Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, joins in intimate conversation with Black thought leaders and community members, as well as interviews with leading historians and other experts, to examine many themes within the Black American experience. The documentary surveys slavery, freedom, and the contours of the bind between North and South; continues with Reconstruction and life under Jim Crow rule; and demonstrates – through personal and historical stories – the status of the ongoing effort to organize and achieve goals first set during slavery.
“It was profoundly meaningful to work on this series at a time in history when we’ve needed community more than ever,” said Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the film’s host, writer, and executive producer. “Through centuries of enslavement and segregation, repressive violence and insidious structural traps, Black Americans shut out of the ‘American Dream’ did anything but fold. Instead, they created their own dazzling array of social, political, and economic spaces – beyond the ‘white gaze’ – that gave birth to an entirely novel Black culture that would transform the nation and the world. From the Prince Hall Masons to Black Twitter, Making Black America tells the story of these remarkable Black social networks and how they wove an interconnected web of opportunities and uplift for generations that continue to comfort and inspire.”
“Making Black America is not just about struggle. It’s about the beauty, the love, the joy, and the laughter that African Americans created in spaces for us and by us,” said Stacey L. Holman, the series producer and director.
Throughout the documentary, Gates explores how Black Americans under segregation launched a renaissance that revolutionized American culture and opened up spaces where Black citizens could rise as leaders within their communities. While blocked by the walls of exclusion, Black people nevertheless fought for social justice and social health in vigorous ways, accomplishing a stunning set of achievements that impact American culture through today. The film concludes with an accounting of what the dismantling of legal segregation created in America meant for the world’s Black people and what remains for the present generation to draw upon today.
Making Black America will be accompanied by an outreach and public engagement program, providing opportunities – facilitated by local PBS member stations – for communities to participate in a national conversation about the impact of Black organizing and community-building, and the ongoing implications for American society today. In addition, there will be a website and educational resources designed to engage teachers and students through multiple platforms, including PBS LearningMedia.
Making Black America: Through The Grapevine is a production of McGee Media, Inkwell Media and WETA Washington, D.C. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the writer, host, and executive producer. Dyllan McGee is executive producer. John F. Wilson is executive producer in charge for WETA. Bill Gardner is the executive in charge for PBS. Stacey L. Holman is series producer and director. Shayla Harris is producer/director. Deborah C. Porfido is supervising producer. Robert L. Yacyshyn is line producer. Kevin Burke is producer. Mattie Akers is archival producer.
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