By Mark Kitchell, producer, director, writer of A Fierce Green Fire Like Berkeley in the Sixties, my previous work which has become one of the defining films about the protest movements of the 1960s, A Fierce Green Fire started with the idea that a big-picture synthesis of environmentalism was needed. It’s the biggest movement the […]

In honor of Black History Month, American Masters looks at a selection of its archive to highlight artists and advocates who shaped America’s culture, changed the course of history, and took a stand in the Civil Rights Movement to create a lawful and just society for all. Browse the archive of American Masters for more. […]

Pratibha Parmar is the writer, director and producer of Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth. This first film biography about writer and activist Alice Walker tells Walker’s dramatic life story with poetry and lyricism. Watch Interview with Pratibha Parmar Parmar was drawn to the “incredibly compelling life” of Walker, who was born and raised on a […]

Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 – Jan. 27, 2014) helped introduce America to its own musical heritage, devoting his life to using the power of song as a force for social change. Standing strong for deeply-held beliefs, Seeger went from the top of the pop charts to the top of the blacklist and was banned […]

Timeline of major events in the life of writer J.D. Salinger (Jan 1, 1919 – Jan 27, 2010), including his education, relationships and literary achievements. Jan 1, 1919 Jerome David Salinger is born in New York City Jerome David Salinger is the second and last child of a Scotch-Irish mother named Miriam Jillich Salinger and […]

Filmmaker Shane Salerno dedicated ten years of his life to answering three questions about the elusive, yet famous writer, J.D. Salinger. In this interview with the writer and director of Salinger, find out what inspired Salerno, and what it took to find the answers. The director’s cut of Salinger, with 15 minutes of new material, […]

Introduction from Salinger. Simon & Schuster. 2013. 720 pages. By David Shields and Shane Salerno J. D. Salinger spent ten years writing The Catcher in the Rye and the rest of his life regretting it. Before the book was published, he was a World War II veteran with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder; after the war, he […]