Atlanta Documentaries

Producers: Laurens Grant, Stanley Nelson
Interviewer: Stanley Nelson

Julian Bond is an American social activist and leader in the American civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped to establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Directed by Leah Williams, Sabin Streeter, Talleah Bridges McMahon, Leslie Asako Gladsjo, Produced by Leah Williams, Talleah Bridges McMahon, Inkwell Films, McGee Media, Ark Media, Kunhardt Films.

The series begins at a crucial turning point in American history: the Selma marches that led to the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the urban rebellion that broke out in Watts just a few days later. Watts marked a new phase in the black struggle, revealing that our nation's racial issues were not confined to the Jim Crow South — and that true equality would not come through laws alone. African Americans wanted access to better jobs, housing and education, and an end to police brutality, and they felt emboldened to try new strategies for achieving those goals.

Part of the CNN Freedom Project.
Produced by Paress Salinas

The U.S. government claims tens of thousands of people are being held in slavery conditions within its own borders. The majority of them are American children. Focusing on the city of Atlanta, CNN, and host Jada Pinkett Smith embark on a journey to uncover, understand and explain the level and means at which children are being exploited. Pinkett Smith talks to prosecutors, victims, advocates and even human traffickers themselves in hopes of catalyzing a nationwide conversation about how to better protect our children from those who would seek to exploit them.

Produced by Cable News Network (CNN).

In 1886, a pharmacist in Atlanta created a flavored syrup initially intended as medicine. Today, the Coca-Cola Company has more than 500 brands and 4,100 drinks around the world.

Gives voice to some of the most marginalized people in our society and raises critical questions about how we have created concentrated poverty and limited housing opportunity for African Americans. A Ken Burns production in 2020 by PBS.

Directed by Kell Kearns, Produced by Lori Kearns, Richard S. R. Johnson, Dave Marquis, Idanha Films.

Personal comments from family members, closest friends, former classmates, and advisors are chronicled in this remarkable documentary honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. To memorialize the life and work of Dr. King, Coretta Scott King is joined by distinguished public figures including Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, former president Jimmy Carter, Bill Cosby, Dick Gregory, Jesse Jackson, Senator Edward Kennedy, John Lewis, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Andrew Young. Together they remember highlights in Dr. King's career.

Directed by Bob Morris, produced by James Cannady, Sheryl J. Cannady, and Tony Brown.

A quintessential picture of bigotry. Tony Brown interviews Stetson Kennedy who successfully infiltrated and exposed the Ku Klux Klan in his books on this terrorist movement in the United States.

From award-winning director/producer Peter Kunhardt, KING IN THE WILDERNESS follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the volatile last three years of his life, from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in April 1968.

Produced by Dick McCutchen

Portrait of the Georgia author and civil rights activist Lillian Eugenia Smith who was the first prominent white southerner to denounce racial segregation openly and to work actively against it. This program includes extensive interviews with the author as well as brief appearances by author Carson McCullers and actress Ruby Dee. Originally broadcast as a television program in 1962.

Directed by Libby Turner, Narrated by Rajan Datar, Produced by Libby Turner, British Broadcasting Corporation

When Coca Cola launched Dasani bottled water in the UK in February, they had high hopes that the success the brand had enjoyed in the States would soon be replicated across Europe. Yet a mere five weeks later - after its source was revealed to be not fresh spring water but the tap waters of Sidcup - it had been withdrawn from sale at a cost of millions of pounds. How could Coca Cola, supposedly one of the most sophisticated marketing organizations in the world, have got this key product launch so badly wrong?

Produced by Catherine Olian

What would seem to be a silly incident about alleged petty vandalism at Emory University has had some very serious consequences for a well-known professor. Morley Safer reports on Sonnenfeld's case.

Headquartered in Atlanta, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee coordinated and contributed to numerous student protests and civil rights movement. This series of videos, held on the 50th anniversary of the organization's founding, documents the experiences and achievements of its members.

FEATURED SPEAKERS: Muriel Tillinghast (SNCC Field Secretary), David Dennis (Congress of Racial Equality aka CORE), Joan T. Mulholland (student, Tougaloo College), Johnny Parham (Atlanta Student Movement).

While deep dissatisfaction was a major factor mobilizing the young people who would engage in direct action protests, often the first steps into activism led to a greater-than-anticipated commitment. David Dennis who would later become CORE's Mississippi director recalls that on his first sit-in he thought police would give him the choice of leaving the restaurant. And he planned to leave when ordered. Instead, he was immediately arrested. Adult mentoring played a large role; adults who had long been struggling for change supported young activists and helped expand their view of the world. As one panelist puts it, "You don't pull commitment out of the air." Joseph McNeil, one of the four pioneering Greensboro students who sat-in February 1, 1960, is present. Responding from the floor to the question of why he sat in, McNeil says, reflecting the attitude of an entire generation of Black students, "I was angry at segregation, knew segregation was evil, knew if I had kids they would have to live under it, and being a crazy [Negro] was like a badge of honor."

Directed by Joel Katz, Narrated by Dorothy Thigpen, Produced by Joel Katz.

Strange Fruit is the first documentary exploring the history and legacy of the Billie Holiday classic. The song's evolution tells a dramatic story of America's radical past using one of the most influential protest songs ever written as its epicenter. The saga brings viewers face- to- face with the terror of lynching even as it spotlights the courage and heroism of those who fought for racial justice when to do so was to risk ostracism and livelihood if white - and death if Black. It examines the history of lynching, and the interplay of race, labor and the left, and popular culture as forces that would give rise to the Civil Rights Movement.

Directed by Michael Colgan, Produced by James Cannady.

In this 1983 episode of Tony Brown's Journal, Brown discusses the Atlanta child murders with Chet Dettlinger.