Curated playlist

American human rights activists

Martin Luther King Jr.Martin Luther King Jr. died at the age of 39, yet his autopsy showed the heart of a 60 year old, according to his biographer Taylor Branch. Branch attributed the damage to stress. The causes were many. King was jailed repeatedly, attacked…
Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie has appeared in films that grossed more than $6.9 billion worldwide, and Hollywood has named her its highest-paid actress several times. As a teenager, though, she took at-home courses on embalming because she hoped to…
Malcolm XMalcolm X left the Nation of Islam in 1964 and flew to Mecca. There he saw Muslims of all colors treated as equals.
Patti SmithPatti Smith, the American singer, songwriter, poet and author, lost her place in the middle of a song at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm. The date was the 10th of December 2016. She was standing in for Bob Dylan, winner of the…
Cesar ChavezCesar Chavez was born Cesario Estrada Chavez on the 31st of March 1927 and died on the 23rd of April 1993. Many Mexican Americans came to speak of him as a "folk saint." California farm owners saw something else entirely, a communist…
Richard GereRichard Gere had one narrow job at the 65th Academy Awards in 1993, which was to announce the nominees for best art direction. He used the moment to denounce human rights abuses by the Chinese government. The Academy responded by banning…
W. E. B. Du BoisW. E. B. Du Bois died in Ghana the day before the March on Washington. He was 95 and had renounced his U.S. citizenship.
Pope Leo XIVBefore the 2025 conclave, the future Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, explained his chances to a friend by text message. "I'm an American, I can't be elected," he wrote. He was elected anyway. This documentary follows a path…
Gillian AndersonGillian Anderson was arrested on her graduation night. She had broken into her own high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, hoping to glue the locks of its doors shut. Her classmates had voted her "class clown," "most bizarre girl" and "most…
Amber HeardAmber Heard is an American actress, and by the time her 2022 trial in Virginia began, an online petition to remove her from a superhero sequel had gathered 2 million signatures. Few working actors have drawn that kind of attention. Her…