From politics and education to the arts and music, discover the breadth of experience and contributions of Black Americans with a wide variety of programming for Black History Month on WTTW. This year, explore several new documentaries, including a new production from Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on the interwoven history of Black and Jewish America, films on the lives of pioneering pilot Bessie Coleman and civil rights leader Medgar Evers, the untold story of the civil rights movement in Florida, and much more.
Click the schedule links for additional air times.
American Masters – Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands”
Sunday, February 1 at 9:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Discover an international singer who captivated royalty in Europe and defied the conscience of 1939 America. Watch rare archival footage and hear audio recordings exploring her life and career from the Metropolitan Opera to the State Department.
Read our interview with the director.
Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World
Sundays, Starting February 1 at 11:00 pm on WTTW Prime
This four-part social history series explores the history of Black America. A story largely passed over by traditional historians, this incredible narrative of struggle, triumph, and resistance is brought to life through the lens of an art form that has chronicled the emotions, experiences, and expression of Black Americans like none other: rap. Rap is key to understanding racial injustice in the post-Civil Rights era.
Hear from a historian in the program about the series.
Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom
Monday, February 2 at 9:00 pm on WTTW
Go beyond the legend and meet the woman who repeatedly risked her own life and freedom to liberate others from slavery. One of the greatest freedom fighters in U.S. history, Tubman was an Underground Railroad conductor, a Civil War scout, and a spy.
Gospel
Monday, February 2 at 10:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Gospel, a history series from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., digs deep into the origin story of Black spirituality through sermon and song.
Learn more about gospel music in WTTW’s Chicago Stories: The Birth of Gospel.
Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History
Tuesday, February 3 at 8:00 pm on WTTW
From acclaimed scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. comes this new four-part miniseries that explores the complex relationship between Black Americans and Jewish Americans forged through shared struggles against racism and antisemitism.
Chicago Stories: When the West Side Burned
Saturday, February 7 at 5:00 pm on WTTW
The tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968 triggered rage and grief that erupted in the city’s Black community and led to an unprecedented period of public mourning, looting, and destruction on the city’s West Side. Stream the show any time and explore the website.
Triumph: Tampa’s Untold Story in the Civil Rights Movement
Sunday, February 8 at 11:00 am on WTTW
Set in 1960s Florida, this powerful documentary follows a courageous group of Black high school students who organized peaceful sit-ins at a downtown lunch counter, sparking a wave of change across the city. Their actions grew into a movement that opened restaurants, theaters, pools, and beaches to all. Through firsthand accounts and historical footage, the film brings to life the voices of ordinary people who transformed their community and helped reshape a nation.
Everlasting: The Life & Legacy of Medgar Evers
Sunday, February 8 at 12:00 pm on WTTW
This two-part documentary honors the life, work, and impact of one of Mississippi’s most courageous voices, who was assassinated outside his home in 1963. Originally from Decatur, Mississippi, Medgar Evers played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement as the state’s first field secretary for the NAACP. He organized voter registration drives, investigated acts of racial violence, and advocated for the desegregation of public institutions. The film traces both Evers’ personal and professional journey, offering insight into his leadership, the dangers he faced, and the lasting impact of his work – and his death – on his family and the nation.
American Justice On Trial: People V. Newton
Thursday, February 5 at 8:00 pm on WTTW Prime
In one of the “trials of the century” that still reverberates today, Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton faced the death penalty for killing a white policeman in a late-night car stop in 1967 Oakland. While Newton and his maverick attorneys boldly indicted racism in the courts and the country, and a groundbreaking jury led by a historic Black foreman deliberated Newton’s fate, the streets of Oakland and the nation were set to explode if the jury, as expected, returned a verdict of murder.
Gospel Live! Presented By Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Friday, February 6 at 10:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Gospel Live! Presented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a concert celebration honoring the legacy of Gospel music in America. As a companion to Gospel, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., secular and gospel artists sing their favorite gospel classics.
American Experience – Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP
Saturday, February 7 at 8:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Some of the NAACP leaders are familiar, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Thurgood Marshall, but Walter White, head of the NAACP from 1929 to 1955, has been all but forgotten. With his blond hair and blue eyes, Walter White looked white; he described himself as “an enigma, a Black man occupying a white body.” Like virtually all light-skinned African Americans of his day, White was descended from enslaved Black women and powerful white men. But he was Black – by law, identity, and conviction, and spent his entire life fighting for Black civil rights.
American Experience – American Coup: Wilmington 1898
Sunday, February 8 at 9:00 pm on WTTW Prime
This film tells the little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest city in 1898 – the only coup d’etat in the history of the U.S. Stoking fears of “Negro Rule,” self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington’s democratically elected, multi-racial government. Dozens of Black residents were murdered, and thousands were banished. The story of what happened in Wilmington was suppressed for decades until descendants and scholars began to investigate.
Journeys of Black Mathematicians
Tuesday, February 10 at 12:00 pm on WTTW Prime
This two-part series traces the cultural evolution of Black scholars, scientists, and educators in the field of mathematics. The films follow the stories of prominent pioneers, illustrating the challenges they faced and how their triumphs are reflected in the experiences of today’s mid-career Black mathematicians. Their mathematical descendants, in turn, are contemporary college students and K-12 children across the U.S. who are learning they belong in mathematics and STEM.
American Experience: The Riot Report
Saturday, February 14 at 8:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Revisit 1967 when inner cities across America erupted in violence. Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to investigate and the Commission’s final report would offer a shockingly unvarnished assessment of race relations that still resonates today.
Learn more about the Illinois governor who led the Kerner Commission.
Great Migrations: A People on the Move
Sunday, February 15 at 11:00 am on WTTW
Great Migrations explores how a series of Black migrations have shaped the U.S. From waves of Black Americans to the North – and back South – to immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, movement is a defining feature of the Black experience.
Raise Your Head Up: Freedom Colonies in America
Sunday, February 15 at 4:00 pm on WTTW Prime
After the American Civil War, over four million formerly enslaved people were set free, but most had no place to go. Wanting some autonomy over their own lives, many formed Freedom Colonies in an endeavor to live as far away from the racism of Jim Crow as possible. In 1988, documentary photographer Richard Orton began a decades-long project that followed the descendants of four of these communities.
Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up
Sunday, February 15 at 10:30 pm on WTTW Prime
This documentary examines the life of civil rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer, offering first-hand accounts by those who knew her and worked side by side with her in the struggle for voting rights.
Bessie Coleman: Queen of the Skies
Monday, February 16 at 9:00 pm on WTTW
Before iconic aviators Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh captured imaginations, there was Bessie Coleman, who was widely regarded as the first woman of Native American and African American descent to obtain a pilot’s license despite the gender and racial discrimination of the 1920s.
Chicago Stories: The Birth of Gospel
Friday, February 20 at 8:00 pm on WTTW
Trace the birth and growth of gospel music in Chicago in the 1930s through the story of “The Father of Gospel,” Thomas A. Dorsey, who wrote one of gospel’s early hits while coping with his grief over the death of his wife and child. Stream the show any time and explore the website.
American Masters – Sun Ra: Do The Impossible
Friday, February 20 at 9:00 pm on WTTW
This film paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of the poet, philosopher, Egyptologist, bandleader, and jazz visionary known as Sun Ra and the musical, historical, and philosophical currents that shaped him as he forged a Black Space Age future.
Chicago Stories: Pullman and the Railroad Rebellion
Saturday, February 21 at 5:00 pm on WTTW
Meet industrialist George Pullman, inventor of the sleeping railcar who hired an army of Pullman porters and maids to staff them, establishing a company town that gave him complete authority over their lives. Stream the show any time and explore the website.
Making Black America: Through The Grapevine
Saturday, February 21 at 8:00 pm on WTTW Prime
This four-part series, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., chronicles the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people that transformed our country. Gates 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, and the power of social media.
A Fuller Education
Sunday, February 22 at 4:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Education reform is a key issue in every state, as legislators and parents look for the best way forward for our young people. This hour-long program follows the unique journey of Dr. Howard Fuller, an African American civil rights leader and educator who has personally won support from figures as politically diverse as George W. Bush and Barack Obama. As the leader of a big-city school district, Fuller initiated radical new ideas in education that catalyzed a major shift in perspective and are now being emulated nationwide.
The Tuskegee Airmen: Return to Ramitelli
Sunday, February 22 at 7:00 pm on WTTW Prime
This film tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of Black military pilots who broke stereotypes and helped win World War II with their daring fighter escorts of American bombers. Narrated by country music star Darius Rucker, the film returns to Ramitelli airfield in Italy to share the history of the air squadron that helped shift the tides of the war. The legacy-themed documentary features interviews with many original Tuskegee Airmen, family members, and historians – both Italian and American
Chicago Stories – House Music: A Cultural Revolution
Sunday, February 22 at 10:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Chicago has long been known for nurturing diverse music genres and also, infamously, as a place where one of them died – disco. But another musical form rose from its ashes: house music. To mark the 40th anniversary of its invention, celebrate the innovative and catchy electronic dance music that still inspires prominent artists today including Charli XCX, Peggy Gou, Beyonce, and Fisher, its origins in Chicago’s underground Black and gay clubs, and house music producers and DJs such as Frankie Knuckles who welcomed the marginalized into these safe spaces. Stream the show any time and explore the website.
Independent Lens: The Inquisitor
Monday, February 23 at 9:00 pm on WTTW
Explore the life and legacy of Barbara Jordan, a groundbreaking Texas congresswoman whose sharp intellect and moral clarity transformed U.S. politics. From Nixon’s impeachment to civil rights battles, her voice demanded accountability, while she privately faced many struggles.
American Masters: The Disappearance of Miss Scott
Wednesday, February 25 at 11:00 am on WTTW Prime
Learn about jazz virtuoso and screen superstar Hazel Scott, the first Black American to have their own television show. An early civil rights pioneer, Scott faced down the Red Scare at the risk of losing her career and was a champion for equality.
Becoming Frederick Douglass
Saturday, February 28 at 7:00 am on WTTW
Discover how a man born into slavery became one of the most influential voices for democracy in American history. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson explores the role Frederick Douglass played in securing the right to freedom for African Americans.
