PBS AMERICAN PORTRAIT SERIES: I Rise

Go inside the lives of people working to create an antiracist American future. They film themselves doing the hard work, confronting the obstacles and achieving the small victories that could add up to real change in the movement for racial justice.

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Anisa O. is working to remove School Resource Officers from three schools in the Mankato school district.

Courtesy of PBS/RadicalMedia

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Anisa O. is working to remove School Resource Officers from three schools in the Mankato school district.

Courtesy of PBS/RadicalMedia

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Christine H.'s play, starring an all Asian and Black cast, is designed to raise awareness and create dialogue, but the one person she wants it to influence the most is her mother.

Courtesy of PBS/RadicalMedia

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Althea L. helps others to heal through nature, plants, meditation, and a relationship with our ancestors and spirits. Lilburn, Ga.

Courtesy of PBS/RadicalMedia

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Graffiti artist Chris S.uses his art to positively impact his city. Tulsa, Okla.

Courtesy of PBS/RadicalMedia

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Lex, founder of BLM Utah, is more determined than ever to convince the state legislators up for election to endorse her Police Reform Platform, or else police brutality will continue to go unpunished in Utah.

Courtesy of PBS/RadicalMedia

More About The Series

Since it launched in January 2020, PBS AMERICAN PORTRAIT has collected more than 11,000 stories from people across America that, together, hope to answer the question: What does it really mean to be an American today? Millions of people visited the site throughout 2020 to explore user-submitted stories in response to a series of thought-provoking prompts and the events of 2020 in real-time.

These stories helped share the themes reflected in the four-part docuseries. Each of the four new hour-long programs blends stories filmed by everyday people to create a chorus of voices sharing both common and unique experiences from across the country.

Each episode in the series focuses on a main theme — “I Dream,” about our varied pursuits of the American Dream; “I Work,” about the aspirations, struggles and satisfaction in our careers; “I Keep,” about the traditions and values we hold; and “I Rise,” about working to create an antiracist America. These experiences yield complex and diverse stories of what brings us together and what keeps us apart as we strive to understand one another.

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Credits:

Produced by PBS and RadicalMedia