Joe Morton
1) Mr. Tornado
Summary
Meteorologist Tetsuya Theodore “Ted” Fujita spent months studying The Super Outbreak of 1974 – the most intense tornado outbreak on record. Follow the story of the man whose research helped Americans respond to dangerous weather phenomena.
Summary
"The Brother" (Joe Morton) is an alien and escaped slave on the run from his home planet. After he lands in New York City, he tries to adapt to life on the streets of Harlem. Although the Brother is mute, he does have great abilities at fixing machines, and he gets a job. As the Brother tries to blend in with his new culture, he finds an apartment and gradually makes friends. Meanwhile, he is pursued by two agents from his home world who are intent...
Summary
Benjamin Franklin leaves London and returns to wartime Philadelphia where he joins Congress and helps Thomas Jefferson craft the Declaration of Independence. In Paris, he wins French support for the American Revolution then negotiates a peace treaty with Britain. He spends his last years in the new United States, working on the Constitution and unsuccessfully promoting the abolition of slavery.
Summary
After Kristallnacht, Jews are desperate to escape Hitler’s expanding reach. Americans are united in their disapproval of Nazi brutality but divided on whether or how to act even as World War II begins. Charles Lindbergh speaks for isolationists while FDR tries to support the European democracies. The Nazis invade the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust begins in secret.
Summary
The first reports of the killing reach the United States. A group of dedicated government officials form the War Refugee Board to finance and support rescue operations. As the Allies advance, soldiers uncover mass graves and liberate German concentration camps, revealing the sheer scale of the Holocaust. The danger of its reverberations becomes apparent.
Summary
After decades of open borders, a xenophobic backlash prompts the United States to pass laws restricting immigration. In Germany, Hitler finds support for his antisemitic rhetoric and the Nazis begin their persecution of Jewish people, causing many to flee to neighboring countries or America. FDR and other world leaders are concerned by the growing refugee crisis but fail to coordinate a response.
Summary
Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein’s three-part, six-hour documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust, examines how the American people and our leaders responded to one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, and how this catastrophe challenged our identity as a nation of immigrants and the very ideals of our democracy.