MSNBC Films Announces ‘Model America’ Documentary Series

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

September 6, 2022

By BreAnna Bell, Variety

A still from the upcoming documentary series.

MSNBC Films unveiled its upcoming series “Model America” on Tuesday.

According to the program’s log-line, the four-part documentary “dissects America’s complicated relationship with race through the lens of the people of Teaneck, New Jersey, a ‘racial utopia’ turned unlikely ground zero for the modern Black Lives Matter Movement.”

“Model America” details the fallout events that took place after 16-year-old Phillip Pannell was fatally shot by Gary Spath, a White police officer, on April 10, 1990. As the tragic death shakes up the city, rumors and misinformation begins to spread begging those in Teaneck to question if the city is really a home without racial tensions.

[…]

Coming from NBC News Studios, the documentary features interviews with Phillip Pannell’s family, Civil Rights Activist Al Sharpton, Senator Loretta Weinberg (Former New Jersey State Senator), Mike Kelly (author, of Color Lines and an award-winning columnist for The (Bergen) Record of New Jersey), and members of the Teaneck, NJ community including former police officers and the former Mayor of Teaneck, NJ.

“We were immediately drawn to this powerful story and felt it was important to bring to a wide audience. Working with our partners to delve into the case has been fascinating as we’ve reflected on the ways in which our country is still grappling with so many of the same complex issues today,” said Elizabeth Fischer, NBC News Studios executive producer, in a statement.

Check out the official trailer for Model America.

If you like documentaries, check out Waking Up to Racism.

More breaking news.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.