For over three decades, native New Yorker Stanley Nelson has been committed to crafting empathetic, thoughtful, and deeply researched documentaries that illuminate a variety of African American experiences. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and multiple Emmy Award winner, the prolific Nelson is as capable of creating warm, intimate personal portraits (A PLACE OF OUR OWN, about the forty years he spent summering at Oak Bluffs, a Black-oriented resort community on Martha’s Vineyard) as he is spinning thrilling, expansive tales of unfairly overlooked Black contributions to cultural life (THE BLACK PRESS: SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS, TELL THEM WE ARE RISING), and pulsating studies of Black activism in action (FREEDOM SUMMER, THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION).
Directed by Stanley Nelson • 1999 • United States
THE BLACK PRESS: SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS is a powerful and engaging account of the pioneering newspapermen and -women who gave voice to Black America. From facilitating the Great Migration from the South to northern cities to honoring Black soldi...
Directed by Stanley Nelson • 2004 • United States
Since the late nineteenth century, affluent African Americans have built summer communities to rest, socialize, and expose their children to a positive vision of Black life. Some resorts, like Idlewild, Michigan; Cape May, New Jersey; and Fox Lak...
Directed by Stanley Nelson • 2014 • United States
In the hot and deadly summer of 1964, the nation’s eyes were fixed on Mississippi. Over ten pivotal weeks known as Freedom Summer, more than seven hundred student volunteers joined with organizers and local African Americans in a historic effort ...
Directed by Stanley Nelson • 2015 • United States
Change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored. Cities were burning, Vietnam was exploding, and disputes raged over equality and civil rights. A new revolutionary culture was emerging, and it sought to drastically tra...
Directed by Stanley Nelson and Marco Williams • 2017 • United States
The story of America’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) began before the end of slavery, flourished in the twentieth century, and profoundly influenced the course of the nation for over 150 years—yet remains...
