Apple TV+ is celebrating Black History Month by airing several series and films relating to Black stories. From Antoine Fuqua’s “Emancipation,” Idris Elba’s tense thriller “Hijack” to Denzel Washington’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” the streaming giant is celebrating the deeply rooted history of Black stories and storytellers.
“Emancipation,” a film which received the AAFCA Awards Special Achievement nod, doesn’t shy away from the dark psychological mechanics of enslavement and tells the triumphant story of Peter (Will Smith), a man who escapes from slavery while being relentlessly pursued by cold-blooded hunters. In the series “Hijack,” which was just renewed for for a second season, Elba’s character Sam flies into action using his professional skills to save everyone on board when Flight KA29 is hijacked during its seven-hour journey from Dubai to London and “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” led by a stellar Washington is a masterful take on the well-known Shakespearean tale.
Other notable films and series available to stream during Black History Month include “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” the British crime thriller “Criminal Record,” Phylicia Rashad’s “Curses!” “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues.” There is also Reginald Hudlin’s “Sidney,” a documentary that honors the legendary Sidney Poitier and “The Banker,” an important film that centers on revolutionary businessmen Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), who devised an audacious and risky plan to take on the racist establishment of the1960s by helping other African Americans pursue the American dream.
Black History Month has been celebrated in the United States for close to a hundred years and encourages Americans to study the little-known history of an entire people.
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By Samantha Ofole-Prince
