About Legacy

Legacy: Black and White in America
Documentary Feature

Legacy: Black and White in America features the most celebrated African-Americans of our time and examines the political rise of Barack Obama against the backdrop of changing racial attitudes in America. The film presents two parallel storiesóthe story of African-American life today and the story of the Civil Rights generationóto clarify the successes and failures of racial integration in America and what it reveals about our democracy and national character.

Legacy includes Marian Wright Edelman, Deborah Roberts, Rep. John Lewis, Condoleezza Rice, Wynton Marsalis, Mayor Cory Booker, John Singleton, Madam Madon, Andrew Young, Rev. Joseph Lowery, John Hope Franklin, Orlando Patterson, Manning Marable, James Cone, Joseph Ellis, David Driskell, Ira Berlin, James O. Horton, Roger Wilkins, Allison Samuels, Bill T. Jones, and a special dinner tribute on Capitol Hill to the civil rights generation hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

In a nation that has been deeply divided not only by race but also by politics, religion, and class, Legacy is about the ongoing need for integration and wholeness as part of Dr. King’s beloved community. It is about racial division in America as a metaphor for conflicts and tensions that define us as a civilization and as human beings, conflicts that have fueled our rise to global supremacy but that undermine our future. It is about a new generation of leaders forged from the black experience in America and poised to make the dream of the Civil Rights Movement and the promise of democracy and pluralism a reality.