A modern-day Grapes of Wrath, award-winning documentary THE OVERNIGHTERS is a portrait of job-seekers desperately chasing the American Dream to the tiny oil boom town of Williston, North Dakota. Official Selection at the **Sundance Film Festival**.

OUT OF OMAHA is an intimate portrait of twin brothers Darcell and Darrell Trotter, two young black men coming of age in the racially and economically-divided Midwestern city of Omaha, Nebraska. Director Clay Tweel (GLEASON, FINDERS KEEPERS, THE INNOCENT MAN) met the Trotters when they were 17 and filmed them over a period of eight years. By intimately portraying the twins’ hopes and struggles – and the love and help they give and get along the...

How does music bring like-minded people together? In this episode, turn to three traditions of voluntary, public music in America: brass bands, powwows, and folk music festivals. Learn how each tradition, despite their unique sounds and histories, offers fellowship, reinforces bonds, and helps foster a sense of communal history.

Follow the story of the banjo, a musical instrument whose development is intertwined with larger American themes of slavery, conflict, struggle, ingenuity, and musical inventiveness. Plus, learn how musical instruments change shape and sound, and deepen your understanding of the ways we interpret cultural and musical ownership today.

From concert pianos to player pianos, explore the inner workings of one of music's most iconic instruments and its many variations. Then, witness the power of the piano in ragtime music (including Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag") and its role in the emergence of jazz, one of America's most thrilling musical forms.

From square dances (the official state dance in over 20 states) to the waltz (one of America's earliest dance crazes), investigate the relationship between movement and music in the United States. Discover how the human body can synchronize itself to an external rhythm (a response known as rhythmic entrainment).

In this episode, Professor Seeger wrestles with the development of American minstrel shows in the 1830s, with their roots in slavery and racial stereotypes. Then, he reveals how these problematic shows laid the groundwork for other musical traditions, including circuses, medicine shows, and the popular entertainment known as vaudeville.

The United States is built on a foundation of pre-existing musical heritages from people who were already in North America before the nation was born. Survey the musical traditions of the British, French, and Spanish empires, as well as influence from Indigenous groups (some of which still endure to this day).

From executive producer Denis Leary, BURN is an action-packed, award-winning film exploring human struggles, hope and personal courage in the face of overwhelming odds. With vast stretches of abandoned buildings, the highest arson rate in the country, and a budget crisis of epic proportions, these brave men and women risk injury, disablement, and death to try and make a difference for the city they call home. The firefighters’ worst fears are realized...

When two daughters of the South, Director Frances Causey and Producer Sally Holst, set out to find causes for the continuing racial divisions in the United States, they discovered that the politics of slavery didn’t end after the Civil War. In an astonishingly candid look at the history of anti-black racism in the United States, THE LONG SHADOW traces the blunt imposition of white privilege and its ultimate manifestation-slavery. Causey and Holst...