During the 2020 Television Critics Association Press Tour, WKAR and PBS announced new educational, inspirational and entertaining programming for 2020/2021.
PBS Documentaries on Prime Video
Launches Tuesday, August 4, 2020
For 50 years, PBS has been America’s trusted home for documentaries. The PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel is another way for curious viewers to access PBS content outside the PBS Video App. The PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel will include a robust library of critically acclaimed, thought-provoking programs including the entire Ken Burns collection as well as films from NOVA, Frontline, American Masters, Nature, American Experience, Independent Lens, POV and many independent producers. Subscribers will be able to explore various topics or take an in-depth look at the people, traditions and events that mold our world—all carefully curated for “viewers like you” by America’s most trusted home of documentaries: PBS.
Tell Me More With Kelly Corrigan
Premieres Monday, October 5, 2020 at 9:00 p.m.
New York Times bestselling author Kelly Corrigan will conduct candid conversations with influential leaders in their fields, including acclaimed public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson. In each one-hour episode, Corrigan will explore her guests' universal humanity and passions. Throughout the series, the audience will learn revealing insights that will place her guests in a new light. The conversations with Corrigan and her guests will reveal the experiences we all have in common and how we can use those experiences to make a difference.
PBS KIDS Talk About: Race and Racism
Premiering Friday, October 9, 2020 during Family Night
This new half-hour program will feature authentic conversations between real children and their parents, and will include content from PBS KIDS series Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Arthur, and Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. The show will feature kids and their parents talking about race and racial justice-related topics in an age-appropriate way, such as noticing differences in race, understanding what racism can look like, and embracing the role we all have to play in standing up for ourselves and each other -- offering viewers ideas to build on as they continue these important conversations at home.
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
Premieres February 16 and 23, 2021 at 9:00 p.m.
This moving four-hour, two-part series from executive producer, host and writer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, traces the 400-year-old story of the Black church in America, all the way down to its bedrock role as the site of African American survival and grace, organizing and resilience, thriving and testifying, autonomy and freedom, solidarity and speaking truth to power. The documentary reveals how Black people have worshipped and, through their spiritual journeys, improvised ways to bring their faith traditions from Africa to the New World, while translating them into a form of Christianity that was not only truly their own, but a redemptive force for a nation whose original sin was found in their ancestors’ enslavement across the Middle Passage.
American Masters: How It Feels To Be Free
Premiering Early 2021
This upcoming documentary tells the inspiring story of how six iconic African American female entertainers – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier – challenged an entertainment industry deeply complicit in perpetuating racist stereotypes, and transformed themselves and their audiences in the process. The film features interviews and archival performances with all six women, as well as original conversations with contemporary artists influenced by them, including Alicia Keys, an executive producer on the project, Halle Berry, Lena Waithe, Meagan Good, and more. The film is based on the book “How It Feels To Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement” by Ruth Feldstein
Independent Lens: Mr. SOUL!
Coming to WKAR Independent Lens in winter 2021
In 1968, America’s first Black variety show, SOUL!, helmed by producer and eventual host Ellis Haizlip, premiered on public television. The pioneering series ran for six years, cementing itself as not only a vehicle to celebrate Black artistry, community and culture but also as a platform for political expression and a powerful force in the fight for social justice. In Mr. SOUL!, award-winning filmmaker Melissa Haizlip—the niece of Ellis—portrays in exquisite detail a revolutionary time in American culture and entertainment through vibrant archival footage and interviews with numerous Black luminaires who appeared on SOUL!, or were impacted by it.