Zoot Suit Riots is a powerful film that explores the complicated racial tensions and the changing social and political landscape that led up to the explosion on Los Angeles' streets in the summer of 1943.

The American Diplomat explores the lives and legacies of three African American ambassadors — Edward Dudley, Terence Todman and Carl Rowan — who pushed past historical and institutional racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. At the height of the civil rights movement in the United States, the three men were asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home.

A profile on the most famous athlete of his time, Jesse Owens, whose stunning triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games captivated the world even as it infuriated the Nazis. Despite the racial slurs he endured, Jesse Owens' grace and athleticism rallied crowds across the globe.

American Experience: The Codebreaker uncovers the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst whose painstaking work to decode thousands of messages for the U.S. government would send infamous gangsters to prison in the 1920s and bring down a massive, near-invisible Nazi spy ring in WWII.

Explore the life of William Randolph Hearst, the pioneering media mogul and inspiration for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Part 2 of 2.

A pioneer who both reflected and shaped an era, Sandra Day O'Connor was the deciding vote in cases on some of the 20th century’s most controversial issues—including race, gender and reproductive rights.

The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

The story of one of the best-known and most influential religious leaders of the 20th century.

Explore the life of L. Frank Baum, the man behind one of the most beloved, enduring and quintessential American classics, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Woodard was on his way home after serving in WWII. He was pulled off a bus after a heated exchange with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. What happened next? Find out on American Experience, "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard."