PBS Commemorates Indigenous Culture and Contributions Supporting Native American Heritage Month with Unmatched Slate of Programming
Featured Programming Includes Premieres of Ken Burns’s THE AMERICAN BUFFALO and Season Two of Acclaimed Series NATIVE AMERICA, in Addition to Digital and Passport Titles
ARLINGTON, VA; Sept. 27, 2023 – In honor of Indigenous culture, history and contributions, PBS presents an unmatched slate of programming beginning in October and running throughout November in support of Native American Heritage Month.
Featured programming includes the premiere of Ken Burns’s THE AMERICAN BUFFALO (Oct. 16) and Season 2 of the acclaimed series NATIVE AMERICA (Oct. 24) and the broadcast premieres of LITTLE BIRD (Oct. 12), LITTLE BIRD: WANNA ICIPUS KUPI (COMING HOME) (Oct. 12) and NEXT AT THE KENNEDY CENTER “Embracing Duality: Modern Indigenous Cultures” (Oct. 20). In addition, a rich line-up of PBS Digital and PBS Passport titles will be available, such as Julianna Brannum’s HOMECOMING, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF NATIVE AMERICA, and AMERICAN MASTERS and INDEPENDENT LENS episodes highlighting Indigenous artists and activists. Highlights can be seen HERE.
Please see below for additional information on each of these PBS broadcast offerings:
Thursdays, Oct. 12 – Nov. 16 at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings): LITTLE BIRD, a six-part limited dramatic series, tells the story of Bezhig Little Bird, who was adopted into a Jewish family at the age of five, being stripped of her identity and becoming Esther Rosenblum. Now in her twenties, Bezhig longs for the family she lost and to fill in the missing pieces. Her quest lands her in the Canadian prairies where she discovers that she was one of the generation of children forcibly apprehended by the Canadian government through a policy, later coined the Sixties Scoop.
Thursday, Oct. 12 at 10 p.m. ET (check local listings): LITTLE BIRD: WANNA ICIPUS KUPI (COMING HOME) a compelling feature-length documentary, takes viewers behind the scenes of the dramatic series “Little Bird” and the ground-breaking movement for Indigenous narrative sovereignty. This film is a celebration of Indigenous resilience and homecoming, while delivering a hard-hitting reality check for audiences unfamiliar with the Sixties Scoop and subsequent policies created to dismantle Indigenous families.
Monday, Oct. 16 and Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 8 p.m. ET (check local listings): Ken Burns’s THE AMERICAN BUFFALO,a new two-part, four-hour series, takes viewers on a journey through more than 10,000 years of North American history and across some of the continent’s most iconic landscapes, tracing the animal’s evolution, significance to the Great Plains, near demise, and relationship to the Indigenous People of North America.
Friday, Oct. 20 at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings): NEXT AT THE KENNEDY CENTER: “Embracing Duality: Modern Indigenous Cultures,” explores the subtle and complex representation of the contemporary Indigenous experience, featuring special performances and interviews by two-spirit writer and interdisciplinary artist Ty Defoe, Native and African American singer-songwriter Martha Redbone and electronic music duo The Halluci Nation.
Tuesdays, Oct. 24 – Nov. 14 at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings): Season 2 of NATIVE AMERICA is a groundbreaking portrait of contemporary Indian Country. Building on the success of the first season, this four-part Native-directed series reveals the beauty and power of today’s Indigenous world. Smashing stereotypes, it follows the brilliant engineers, bold politicians, and cutting-edge artists who draw upon Native tradition to build a better 21st century.
Programs that explore the past, present and future of Native Americans will also stream across digital platforms on PBS’ YouTube Channel, PBS.org and the PBS App. These programs may also air in select markets (check local listings). For more information, click HERE.
This new film extends the story of Ken Burns’s, THE AMERICAN BUFFALO, to the present by examining the return of the species to Indigenous lands today. It highlights the foundational work of the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC) and its partner organizations, and how they’ve become a guiding force in the food sovereignty and cultural revitalization movements led by tribal citizens across the United States. HOMECOMING will stream only beginning on Oct. 18 on PBS.org and the PBS App and on PBS’s YouTube Channel beginning Nov. 24.
A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF NATIVE AMERICA
Hosted by comedian and actor Tai Leclaire, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF NATIVE AMERICA from PBS Digital Studios explores the current social climate in Native America, diving deep into the history of tribal nations and the external factors that have shaped contemporary circumstances. The debut episode, “Pocahontas & the MMIW2S Crisis” (Nov. 1) on PBS Origins, tells the unabridged true story of Pocahontas and her connection to the contemporary Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit (MMIW2S) movement.
Hosted by Cheyenne Bearfoot (Chiricahua Apache Nation), SOVEREIGN INNOVATIONS celebrates the brilliance of Indigenous innovation through the lens of contemporary knowledge and culture. The first episode, “Indigenous Fashion Innovators” (Nov. 15) on PBS Voices, explores how Indigenous designers reject misconceptions about how Native people “should” look by blending tradition and Indigenous modernism to create a new type of visibility within their communities.
NATIVE BALL: LEGACY OF A TRAILBLAZER
Annually, nearly 5,000 high school girl basketball players earn a full-ride Division I scholarship. In 1992, only one was Native American: Blackfeet Nation’s Malia Kipp. Through the support of her family and community, she blazed a trail – and heroic legacy – for other Native American girls to follow. Premiering Wednesday, Nov. 1 (check local listings)
AMERICAN MASTERS “Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On”
Experience the story of the Oscar-winning Indigenous artist from her rise to prominence in New York’s Greenwich Village folk music scene through her six-decade groundbreaking career as a singer-songwriter, social activist, educator and artist.
INDEPENDENT LENS: “Alter-Native Kitchen”
See how cooking connects three Native chefs to their own histories. Watch as they teach others in their communities with mouth-watering delicacies.
IF CITIES COULD DANCE “Indigenous Enterprise Brings Powwow Dance to the World Stage”
Indigenous Enterprise, made up of a new generation of Native American Powwow dancers from across the U.S. and Canada, is on a mission to bring Native culture to new heights and audiences. Founded on what Kenneth Shirley (Diné) calls the “Three Ps”—preservation, performance and progression—Indigenous Enterprise focuses on uplifting sacred dances and rituals.
SOUND FIELD “What Does Electric Pow Wow Sound Like?”
Canadian DJ collective A Tribe Called Red combine Native American drum circle sounds with electronic music to create Electric Pow Wow. Nahre Sol travels to Toronto to meet A Tribe Called Red to learn how they blend native sounds and electronic music. LA Buckner meets with Iron Boy drum circle in Minnesota to watch a live performance and learn about their sound.
HISTORIAN’S TAKE “What Can We Learn From These Native American Comedies”
Native American representation in film and TV used to be confined to Westerns and storylines of defeat. Today, a new wave of Native American comedies, written and created by Native peoples, are taking back their narratives. Shows like “Reservation Dogs” and “Rutherford Falls” challenge stereotypes and address big political movements like #LandBack.
TIME HAS MANY VOICES: THE EXCAVATION OF THE MUWEKMA OHLONE VILLAGE
In the Bay area of San Francisco is an ancient village site where Native peoples long ago lived and prospered. Now, in a once in a lifetime event, the descendants of those people, the Muwekma Ohlone, have partnered with archeologists to conduct one of the most intensive studies ever undertaken at an early pre-contact site in California.
Indigi-Genius is devoted to telling the scientific and cultural impact of Indigenous creations and knowledge of the past and present. Written and hosted by Dr. Lee Francis, pueblo and self-described Indigi-Nerd, and funded in part by VisionMaker Media, the series covers a range of global Indigenous topics & breaks down the science, culture, history, and “Indigi-Genius” knowledge.
INDEPENDENT LENS: “Conscience Point”
“Conscience Point” tracks the fractured history of the Shinnecock tribe on Long Island alongside the spirited path of one Native woman determined to make a stand: activist Rebecca Hill-Genia who, together with other determined tribal members and allies, has waged a relentless, years-long battle to protect the land and Shinnecock cultural heritage from the ravages of development and displacement.
Get to know the Sugpiat community as they come home to Kodiak Island in Alaska to learn and build Indigenous knowledge. Merging Indigenous knowledge with western science, Dr. Sven Haakanson and other Sugpiat people in Akhiok pass along the ingenuity of traditional knowledge in a living context to young Sugpiat while building a kayak from wood gathered on the treeless beaches of Cape Alitak.
The following programs explore the Land Back Movement, a movement which aims to reclaim ancestral lands in order to restore Indigenous governance over them.
ABOVE THE NOISE “How the #Landback Movement Might Help Save the Planet”
Hosted by Myles Bess, Indigenous communities across the globe are experts at managing and protecting land. Is it time the U.S. finally returned stolen parklands back to them?
On San Francisco’s first official Indigenous People’s Day, a group of Native artists contributed a dance performance, Groundworks, to the annual Sunrise Ceremony on Alcatraz nearly 50 years after the Indians of All Tribes occupied the island. Their contemporary creative practices and activism help these artists work towards the reclamation of Native lands while restoring traditional ways.
From Local, USA, spotlights Indigenous leaders rising up to meet the challenge of the climate crisis. For people whose existence is inseparable from their native land, climate change is not a tale of the future – it is the present.
The following PBS children’s programs celebrating Native Americans and Alaskan Native cultures will also be streaming for free on PBS KIDS:
PBS KIDS
Streaming free on PBS KIDS
MOLLY OF DENALI is an award-winning animated series that follows the adventures of 10-year-old Molly Mabray, a curious and resourceful Alaska Native girl who lives in the fictional village of Qyah, Alaska. MOLLY OF DENALI is the first nationally distributed children’s program to feature Native American and Alaska Native lead characters. The ground-breaking series, produced by GBH, incorporates Alaska Native voices in all aspects of the production, both on-screen and behind the scenes.
Streaming free on PBS KIDS
Inspired by MOLLY OF DENALI, the “Awesome Alaskan Kids” short series shows real kids from across Alaska filming their own vlogs! Each kid shares a unique perspective, culture, and adventure as Alaskans and Alaska Natives.
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