How It Feels to Be Free is a documentary film about six legendary African American women performers and their engagement with the Black freedom struggle. This is the first film to focus on the unique contributions of female entertainers to that struggle, and to ...
Black actresses have always faced barriers. Initially, they were not allowed to be on screen at all. Then, they could only play certain types of roles: typically either as a servant and/or enslaved woman, or as an “exotic” temptress. Never a character that was fully ...
Born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan rejected her mother’s expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She chose to write fiction instead. Her novels are “The Joy Luck Club,” “The Kitchen God’s Wife,” “The Hundred Secret Senses,” “The ...
Cicely Tyson's support for civil rights came through her portrayals of Black womanhood in her film roles. As a result, she was selective in the kind of work she took on and describes here how roles that appealed to her didn't come very often.
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In this outtake from "American Masters: How It Feels To Be Free," actress Halle Berry talks about the television show that "rearranged her" and made her realize that she "had value," demonstrating the importance of having role models in media.
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Eunice Kathleen Waymon was not a singer. Her stage persona, Nina Simone, was. Born on February 21, 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, the young and gifted Eunice was interested only in becoming a classical concert pianist. But through a series of twists and turns that ...
American Masters: How It Feels To Be Free tells the inspiring story of how six iconic African American female entertainers—Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier—challenged an entertainment industry deeply complicit in perpetuating racist stereotypes, and transformed themselves and ...
“I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.” We sang Nina Simone’s song at my Quaker school in Massachusetts. And I played it repeatedly on the record player in the apartment I shared with my mother, a small warm retreat filled with ...
