Award-Winning Documentary Series AMERICA REFRAMED Announces its 2018 Black History Month National TV Premieres

America ReFramed, an award-winning documentary series co-produced by partners WGBH/Boston and American Documentary (producers of the acclaimed POV series), explores America's ever-changing socio-cultural landscape. Following each TV premiere, FREE streaming will be offered via worldchannel.org and all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org, and on the PBS apps for iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast. Below, please find information on three titles making their national TV premieres on the World Channel in connection with Black History month.

GENTLEMEN OF VISION (GOV) - Tuesday, February 6, 2018, at 8 p.m.

Gentlemen of Vision is a film that reveals a vulnerability and honesty in the stories of Black male youth, rarely exhibited in popular mainstream culture. The film by Jim Kirchherr and Frank Popper was produced as part of American Graduate, public media's initiative to improve outcomes for all young people. American Graduate is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. WORLD Channel will present the film in its entirety, an extended version of the film's festival cut, as part of the new season of AMERICA REFRAMED, public media's award winning documentary series.

Set in the heart of St. Louis, Gentlemen of Vision (GOV) follows a year in the life of coach, counselor and founder, MARLON Wharton, and his 2015-2016 class of young Black students as he strives to rewrite their future prospects. While endeavoring for excellence in school and in step, the team is persistently challenged by the violence and poverty of the streets that surround them.

For Ahkeem - Tuesday, February 13, 2018, at 8 p.m.

Beginning one year before the fatal police shooting of a Black teenager in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, "For Ahkeem," the award-winning feature documentary by Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest, is the coming-of-age story of Daje Shelton, a Black 17-year-old girl in North St. Louis. She fights for her future and navigates the marginalized neighborhoods, biased criminal justice policies and economic devastation that have set up many Black youth like her to fail.

After she is expelled from her public high school, a juvenile-court judge sends Daje to the court-supervised Innovative Concept Academy, an alternative high school that offers her one last chance to earn a diploma. The judge explains, "Either you make it with me or you don't make it at all."

Agents of Change - Tuesday, February 20, 2018, at 8 p.m.

AGENTS OF CHANGE by Frank Dawson and Abby Ginzberg looks at a moment in U.S. contemporary history when our nation was caught at the intersection of the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Anti-Vietnam War Movements and the pivotal role of Black student activists at that time who fought to reform American universities.

The film examines the racial conditions on college campuses across the U.S., focusing on two seminal protests: San Francisco State in 1968 and Cornell University in 1969. These protests paved the way for student equity and inclusion, and led to establishing the first Black and Ethnic Studies departments. Today, nearly half a century later, many of the same demands are surfacing in campus protests across the country, revealing how much work remains to be done.

To post a comment, you must register and login.