George H. Spaulding is a world class musician and a legend in Pittsburgh's music scene. As a piano tuner, he's helped perfect the local performances of Liberace, Andre Watt and Andre Previn, just to name a few. but he is first and foremost a musician, known simply as The Duke.
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Civil Rights: Witnesses To History
They are senior citizens now, but during the early 1960s, their youthful actions reshaped America. WQED shares the unforgettable memories and rare photographs of Civil Rights era...
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Nazi Olympics
Most know the 1936 Olympics, held in Nazin Germany, for the amazing feats of African American athlete Jessie Owens, who smashed theories of "Aryan" superiority...
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Duke Spalding
George H. Spaulding is a world class musician and a legend in Pittsburgh's music scene. As a piano tuner, he's helped perfect the local performances of Liberace, Andre Watt...
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Slave To Soldier
This exhibit at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum in Oakland chronicles the epic struggle of enslaved Africans who fought for their freedom in the Civil War. OnQ's Chris Moore reports.
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Shona Sharif African Drum
African dance is an art form with a vast history. At the University of Pittsburgh, the Shona Sharif African Dance Ensemble educates students, as well as the entire Pittsburgh...
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American Legion Post 450
Like many other American Legion posts, Walter Robinson Post 450 in Sewickley is suffering from declining membership and difficulty maintaining its financial footing. Post 450...
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A Beautiful Life
102 year old Mrs. Lillian Allen talks to Chris Moore about a life well lived. Through old photos and film Horizons chronicles Mrs. Allen's entrepreneurship during the heyday...
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New Hope for the Hill District
For many years Pittsburgh's Hill District has struggled to regain its former glory. Through good times and bad, residents have kept hoping and fighting for true renewal....
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View even more Black History Month videos from on OnQ OnDemand Player
Black History Programming on WQED-TV
The Black Kungfu Experience – Sun, 2/3 at 3pm
Meet kungfu's black pioneers and heroes who fluorished at the junction of African American and Asian cultures. The Black Kungfu Experience traces the rise of black kungfu in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and resonates in the contemporary martial arts scene in Washington D.C, Los Angeles, The Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and Hong Kong. Chinese and African American experiences evolve differently yet converge in unexpected ways; they challenge political and social persecution - from shadows of the Qing government's oppressive rule in China, and British colonialism in Hong Kong, to entrenched American racism - with the unique vehicle of kungfu.
The film focuses on how a group of African American pioneers became respected masters in a subculture dominated by Chinese and white men.
The Abolitionists: American Experience – Sun, 2/3, 4pm to 7pm
On January 1, 1863, when abolitionist leaders Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison received word that the Emancipation Proclamation had declared three million enslaved African Americans "forever free," it was the culminating moment of the most important civil rights crusade in American history, and the climax of a long and difficult friendship between two remarkable men. In this series, American Experience tells the story of how Douglass, Garrison and their abolitionist allies Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimke turned a despised fringe movement against chattel slavery into a force that literally changed the nation. The "holy warriors" of emancipation captured the private details of their tumultuous political and personal journeys toward freedom in letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and memoirs. They revealed themselves to be willful, arrogant, righteous, and unbending, yet empathic, faithful, loyal, candid, and just. They fought the slave-holding South with a moral passion and bickered among themselves with petty familiarity. Along the way, they fell in love, got married, had families, lost loved ones, formed cliques, quarreled and made up.
An Evening With Berry Gordy – Thur, 2/11 at 10pm
Gwen Ifill interviews Berry Gordy in front of a studio audience, with performances by classic and new Motown artists. Gordy's celebrated life as entrepreneur, songwriter, record producer, movie director and producer has left an indelible influence on music and films both nationally and internationally. Performers include: Valerie Simpson (Ashford & Simpson) and R & B musician KEM. Gordy's son, Stefan Gordy -- known to the music world as Redfoo -- one-half of the hip-hop musical group, LMFAO, will be in attendance.
Underground Railroad: The William Still Story – Fri, 2/15 at 10:30pm
This program tells the story of William Still, one of the most important yet unheralded individuals of the Underground Railroad. The film details the accounts of black abolitionists, who had everything at stake as they helped fugitives follow the North Star to Canada.
Classical WQED-FM 89.3
WQED-FM will be celebrating Black History Month throughout the month of February.
Listen everyday for classical music written by an African-American or performed by an African-American musician.
Let Freedom Sing: The Music of the Abolisionists - Sat, 2/12 at 9pm
This one hour program profiles the intertwining music and careers of five main musical Abolisionists - English balladeer Henry Russell; the 13-member Hutchinson Family from New Hampshire; American songwriter Stephen Foster; Chicago publisher turned composer George F. Root; and songwriter Henry Clay Work.
During the weeks of February 18th and 25th, Exploring Music will celebrate African-American composers and performers. Exploring Music airs each weekday from 10-11pm.
