Democracy Noir

Chronicles the Mississippi voter registration drive from 1961-1964.

This acclaimed Emmy Award-winning anthology series features documentaries and a limited number of fiction films united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions of their independent producers and featuring unforgettable stories about a unique individual, community or moment in history.

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

Interviews with seven American veterans of the Spanish Civil War who fought for the Loyalist cause during the war and went on to live lives of activism.

Documentary about women's experiences of labour, in factories, mines and dockyards, in the USA during the second World War and how it affected their work and career aspirations once they were encouraged to give up such employment in peacetime.

An African American gospel choir is the Greek chorus for a Palestinian play on Martin Luther King, Jr. which tours the West Bank, preaching nonviolence. The devoutly Christian choir grew up in churches strongly allied with Israel. On their first trip to the Holy Land they witness the harsh realities of life under occupation, a nonviolent movement for justice, and an assassination. Our story is a unique view of a crucial human rights conflict. Mixing the excitement of foot-stomping gospel music and creative theater it reveals the power of art to communicate, heal, and give voice to communities living in fear. It is a cultural exchange of immense depth and far-reaching implications, where, during the course of the journey, people's preconceptions are radically changed.

This story traces the complex and fascinating drama of the anti-apartheid movement in one of South Africa's most important allies, the United States. The US is a key battleground, with African-Americans at the center of the struggle. The campaigns take place in boardrooms, universities, embassies, and finally in the US Congress itself, where a stunning victory is won against the formidable opposition of President Ronald Reagan. African-Americans, for the first time in history, have turned the tide and altered the direction of US foreign policy. The US, once the backbone of support for the apartheid regime as her ally in the Cold War, finally imposes sanctions on Pretoria. This is part 4 of a 6 part series on the global anti-apartheid movements, stretching from 1946-1990.

In the final story of this six part series, we switch perspectives, taking viewers into the heart of the conflict as our South African characters tell the story of the most important non-violent effort in the anti-apartheid campaign -- the mass movement inside South Africa. The country is in a permanent crisis as it tries to convince the world of the merit of its piecemeal reforms and to win allies internally. The regime struggles to suppress open revolt, at times using savage secret tactics The protest climaxes in a fierce campaign of defiance. Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela becomes a household name as the campaign to free him ignites a worldwide crusade. Caught between international campaigns that succeed in both politically and economically isolating the Apartheid state, and an unstoppable internal mass movement, the regime is finally forced to the negotiating table. After twenty-seven years in prison, Nelson Mandela is released, triggering a global celebration.

Athletes and activists around the world, faced with governments reluctant to take meaningful action against the apartheid regime, hit white South Africa where it hurts: on the playing field. International boycotts against apartheid sports teams help bring the human rights crisis in South Africa to the forefront of global attention and sever white South Africans' cultural ties to the West.

The theme of the fifth story of six is money: how a grassroots movement cuts the South African government off from the taproot of its success, its sustaining financial connections to the West. Citizens all over the world, from a General Motors director to average employees of Polaroid, from account-holders in Barclays Bank to consumers who boycott Shell gas, all refuse to let business with South Africa go on as usual. Faced with attacks at home and growing chaos in South Africa, international companies pull out in a massive exodus that undermines the apartheid system. It is the first international grassroots campaign to use economic pressure to bring down a government.

This first story in a six part series covers almost twenty years of history. It is a story of escalating violence and repression, one nation on a collision course with the rest of the world. When the United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, South Africa marches in the opposite direction and begins to implement a series of laws segregating its people by race in every aspect of life, prompting the non-white majority led by the ANC to protest. The non-violent movement picks up supporters all over the world, starting first with a network of Gandhites in Britain, Sweden, and the United States. But Apartheid hardens in the face of this resistance. By the fateful year of 1964, Nelson Mandela is jailed for life, and the entire leadership is forced underground, imprisoned or killed. The movement is effectively shut down in South Africa as hundreds escape into exile.

An examination of one incident in one man's life: Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his discovery and exposure of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

Long one of South Africa's most important and powerful allies, the United States becomes a key battleground in the anti-apartheid movement as African-Americans lead the charge to change the government's policy toward the apartheid regime. A grassroots movement to get colleges, city councils, and states to divest their holdings in companies doing business in South Africa spreads across the entire nation pressuring the U.S. Congress to finally sanction South Africa. This stunning victory is won against the formidable opposition of President Ronald Reagan. African-Americans significantly alter U.S. foreign policy for the first time in history. European sanctions follow, and with them, the political isolation of the apartheid regime.

It is youth, both inside and outside, who next join the growing movement against apartheid. Buoyed by new support in western countries, Oliver Tambo returns to the United Nations to try to convince the world body to sanction South Africa. His efforts gain new public support as the brutal suppression of a youth uprising in the South African township of Soweto and the murder of freedom fighter Steve Biko turn South Africa from a country into a cause, a worldwide emblem of injustice. A significant victory is won when the United Nations issues a mandatory arms embargo: the first in history. But South Africa's strongest trading partners in the West still will not sanction it economically. and as Tambo heads to Zambia to minister to the ANC's growing guerrilla army, a bloodbath seems inevitable. But even as the most powerful western governments refuse to heed Tambo's calls for cultural and economic boycotts, the citizens of those western nations will help turn the tide.

ANC Deputy President Oliver Tambo escapes into exile and embarks on what will become a 30-year journey to engage the world in the struggle to bring democracy to South Africa. With resistance inside South Africa effectively crushed by the brutal apartheid regime, the fate of the liberation struggle is now in Tambo's hands. He first finds allies in the newly independent countries of Africa, and with their collective strength behind him, he approaches the U.N. for support, insisting that the apartheid government can be forced to the negotiating table if the Security Council will sanction and isolate the regime. But the western powers refuse to act, forcing Tambo to search for new support. He successfully petitions the Soviet Union for help in building a guerilla army, a decision that lands Tambo in the vice of the Cold War and haunts his global efforts for years to come.

A timely examination of human values and the health issues that affect us all, ¡Salud! looks at the curious case of Cuba, a cash-strapped country with what the BBC calls 'one of the world's best health systems.' From the shores of Africa to the Americas, ¡Salud! hits the road with some of the 28,000 Cuban health professionals serving in 68 countries, and explores the hearts and minds of international medical students in Cuba -- now numbering 30,000, including nearly 100 from the USA. Their stories plus testimony from experts around the world bring home the competing agendas that mark the battle for global health-and the complex realities confronting the movement to make health care everyone's birth right.