This Film Became a Movement | W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause Premieres on PBS

🎙️ Episode 13

This Film Became a Movement | W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause Premieres on PBS

After more than four years of research, interviews, travel, fundraising, collaboration, and faith, W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause premieres nationally on PBS.

In this special episode, Rita Coburn reflects on the journey of bringing this documentary to life and the overwhelming response from audiences across the country. From Los Angeles and Cleveland to Atlanta, New York, Santa Monica, Chicago, and Memphis, this film has sparked something larger than a documentary screening. It has become a movement.

This episode explores why the work and warnings of W.E.B. Du Bois remain urgent today. As conversations around democracy, voting rights, citizenship, history, and Black identity continue to shape the national landscape, Du Bois’s message speaks directly into the present moment.

Rita also reflects on the meaning of history, the importance of protecting truth, and why Black history is American history, international history, and Pan-African history.

🔍 What You’ll Hear in This Episode

•  The four-year journey behind W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause
•  Audience reactions from screenings across the country 
•  Why this documentary became more than a film 
•  Connections between Du Bois, voting rights, and present-day democracy 
•  The importance of the 14th and 15th Amendments 
•  Why history continues to be contested and protected 
•  How Du Bois used media, scholarship, and storytelling as tools for liberation 
•  Why this moment calls for education, vigilance, and collective action 

🧠 Key Themes

•  W.E.B. Du Bois and democracy 
•  Voting rights and citizenship 
•  Black history as American history 
•  Pan-African identity and connection 
•  Historical memory and resistance 
•  Education and civic engagement 
•  Art as cultural transformation 

📣 Resources / Links

W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause premieres on PBS Tuesday, May 19 at 8 PM CT/9 PM ET, and will be available to stream through June 16 on pbs.org/americanmasters, the American Masters YouTube Channel, and the PBS app.

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📄 Transcript available here
 https://www.buzzsprout.com/2598323

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🎬 About the Series

Our Truth, Our History, Our Story (Our THS) explores the people, ideas, and cultural forces shaping Black history and storytelling today.

👥 Production Credits

Host: Rita Coburn
 Executive Producer: Andrew T. Carr
 Producers: Christine Coburn Whack, H. Lee Whack

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Our Truth, Our History, Our Story. I'm Rita Coburn. Tomorrow night, after more than four years of research, interviews, travel, commitment, fundraising, collaboration in faith, our documentary WEB Du Bois Rebel with a Cause will air nationally on PBS. Please check your local listings for the time. And before that moment arrives, I simply want to say thank you. Thank you to the sold-out audiences who embrace this film from the very beginning, from our Los Angeles premiere to our Cleveland International Film Festival, our Atlanta screenings, our New York premiere, to our extraordinary week-long run in Santa Monica, and to our powerful screenings in Chicago. We have plans to attend the African American Martha's Vineyard Film Festival. We have plans to attend Light Reel in Washington, D.C. So come to RitaCoburn.com and see where we will be next. But now I say thank you to all the people who worked on this film and to all of you who saw it. What we witnessed in those theaters was more than appreciation for a documentary. We witnessed people hungry for truth, hungry for history, hungry for context, hungry to reconnect with a history too often ignored, softened, or erased. By the time you see this, we will have just come from Memphis, where we would hold a screening. And let me explain, we didn't know that this disastrous redistricting plan that splits the historically Democratic majority black city of Memphis into three separate Republican-leaning congressional districts. We didn't know that. And a day before the broadcast of this documentary, we're scheduled for Memphis to be embraced by a city stripped of its voting rights to show this film. That says to me that Du Bois is still speaking. Just as Du Bois died on the eve of the march on Washington and therefore took center stage by being mentioned at that historic event and passing the baton to Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel, we get the opportunity to speak to Memphis. I hope you see where this is going. Your truth, your history, and your story is bigger than any present moment. It is being propelled forward by the spirit of these times. This film has become more than a project. W.E.B. Du Bois Rebel with a Cause has become a movement. If you attended any of those screenings, please go to my website, readacoburn.com, and check the link for your city to get access to photos. Check the link in this podcast link tree to get access to tune-in cards for the broadcasts and quotes you can post. We will keep refreshing that information. This is a movement inspiring all people, and African Americans in particular, to embrace the ideals that W.E.B. Du Bois fought for his entire life. Dignity, education, justice, citizenship, voting rights, and the full humanity of black people in America. Du Bois believed deeply that democracy could not survive unless America lived up to its promise. And in this year, as this nation approaches 250 years of independence for some, we are still called to finish the unfinished work of democracy. We must uphold and make real the promises embedded in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law and defines who is a citizen of the United States. The Fifteenth Amendment protects our right to vote. These are not abstract ideas. These are foundational. This is the foundation of civil and legal rights in this country. And yet, generations after Reconstruction, we still find ourselves fighting to protect rights that should never be negotiable. Du Bois warned us about this. He understood that progress without villigence could always be reversed. He understood that history matters because history teaches us how democracy succeeds and how it fails. And that is why your history is important. And that is why factions of this government want to destroy that history, because you and our history is important and impactful, and black history is American history. It is international history. It is Pan African history. We are all connected. We cannot be divided if we know who we are. This documentary is not simply about the past, it's about now. It's about who are we willing to become in this moment. It's about whether we will leave the work one-third done, the Reconstruction Amendments, the Thirteenth Amendment abolish slavery, but the 14th and 15th must be realized. And this is up to you. It's up to us. Black people and white people and anyone else that wants to join us in this fight. We've got now. This is the time. Tomorrow night, when this film airs on PBS, I hope audiences across this country will see not only the brilliance of W.E.B. Du Bois, but also the urgency of his message, and the message doesn't stop there. The film will stream through PBS until june sixteenth, and we will work diligently to let you know where the film will land in the near future. Already your willingness to engage with this film has increased history. We've all become a part of history. After tomorrow night, the addition to history begins and the resurgence of our history continues. Instead of the wonderful, esteemed but usual names in black history taught every February in our classrooms, the addition for some and the resurgence for others will be that W.E.B. Du Bois and his ideals will join the month of February and beyond and will be talked about more commonly. There will be a deeper understanding of our rights of a man who fought for those rights. There will be a deeper understanding of our rights, who we are as people of the diaspora, the birth of and the continuation of the Pan African movement, and the meaning of sociology will be added to our national and international discourse and conversations. It's already been there, but art has a way of blooming. Art has a way of increasing. Art has a way to help you to use this time to teach your children and to honor your elders. Subscribe to this podcast, share the promotional cards and the trailer on your timelines and on your social media. Push Du Bois into the global conversation and don't call it a comeback. Du Bois' over 21 books, many in the public domain. You can go online and download them. I suggest you download the short story The Comet. The Comet is science fiction and Afrofuturism that Du Bois wrote in 1920. I suggest you download the souls of black folk that have been taught and continue to be taught around the world. If you don't know about Du Bois, it's not a problem. I didn't know much about him either. But I always remember my elders saying, when you know better, you can do better. Du Bois used media to embrace the ideals that we're talking about right now in this country. Education matters. The truth matters. Citizenship matters. Black history is American history and they both matter. Sixteen nineteen began our journey in this country. And democracy only works when all people are fully included. Thank you to our scholars, our producers, our executive producers, our contributors, our funders, and all of our partners. And thank you to all of you who are listening. Thank you to everyone that supported this journey. Please tune in on May 19th. Check your local listings for W.E.B. Du Bois Rebel with a Cause, because our truth matters, our history matters, and our story matters. I'm Rita Coburn for Our Truth, Our History, and Our Story.