Black History Month TV shows in NYC

Celebrate the end of Black History Month with a day of  pioneering and influential TV programs featuring African-American performers and the Black experience, on Sunday, Feb. 26th at the Paley Center for Media in Midtown (and also at the museum branch in Los Angeles).

The screenings are the final event in the month-long exhibit African-American Achievements in Television, which also includes clips from TV moments featuring such pioneering TV stars  as Redd Foxx (Sanford and Son) and Diahann Carroll (Julia), along with modern stars including Kerry Washington (Scandal).

The video clips are FREE in the lobby of Paley Center for Media, on West 52nd St. in NYC and in Los Angeles.  The screenings on Sunday are additional, FREE with museum admission.

12:15 pm
Sesame Street: “Big Bird’s Pen Pal” (2002) – Sweep the clouds away with this diversity-themed episode of the great American children’s series, still running strong in its forty-eighth year.

1:16 pm
Justice League: “Legends Part 1” (2002) –Superhero superteam battles supervillains in alternate dimension. (22 minutes)

1:39 pm
Justice League: “Legends Part 2” (2002) –Superheroes vs. supervillains, part two. (22 minutes)

2:02 pm
Teen Titans: “Car Trouble” (2003) –Cyborg’s new supercar starts with T, and that stands for trouble. (22 minutes)

2:24 pm
The Oprah Winfrey Show: “Malcolm X” (1992) –Oprah chats with director Spike Lee about his film Malcolm X, plus Malcolm’s widow and daughter. (44 minutes)

3:09 pm
Paris: “Dead Men Don’t Kill” (1979) –Paris (James Earl Jones) tries to save a possibly innocent man on death row in this stark episode of the criminally underappreciated cop drama. (50 minutes)

New York-Only
4:00 pm
Hallmark Hall of Fame: The Piano Lesson (1995) – TV adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a family in 1930s Pittsburgh and the conflict over an antique piano, a family heirloom with great symbolic value; starring Charles Dutton, Alfre Woodard, and Courtney B. Vance. (1 hour 40 minutes)

For those who don’t know, Paley Center was founded by Bill Paley, founder of CBS.

Full disclosure: NYCOTC editor Evelyn Kanter worked at CBS News as a writer and producer, and was a reporter for WBCS Newsradio 88.