Meet the influential author and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Also a trained anthropologist, Hurston collected folklore throughout the South and Caribbean — reclaiming, honoring and celebrating Black life on its own terms.

Follow the gripping story of the race against time to save San Francisco and the nation from an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900.

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