Martin Luther King Jr.

In honor of Black History Month, the YMCA of Central Maryland is marking the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Andrea Fujii reports with the annual tribute to the civil rights leader.

Trailer for the documentary Paul Goodman Changed My Life. Paul Goodman was once so ubiquitous in the American zeitgeist that he merited a cameo in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Author of legendary bestseller Growing Up Absurd (1960), Goodman was also a poet, 1940s out queer (and family man), pacifist, visionary, co-founder of Gestalt therapy and a moral compass for many in the burgeoning counterculture of the '60s. Paul Goodman Changed My Life immerses you in an era of high intellect (that heady, cocktail-glass juncture that Mad Men has so effectively exploited) when New York was peaking culturally and artistically; when ideas, and the people who propounded them, seemed to punch in at a higher weight class than they do now. Using a treasure trove of archival multimedia selections from Goodman's poetry (read by Garrison Keillor and Edmund White); quotes from Susan Sontag, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Noam Chomsky; plentiful footage of Goodman himself; plus interviews with his family, peers and activists director/producer Jonathan Lee and producer/editor Kimberly Reed (Prodigal Sons) have woven together a rich portrait of an intellectual heavyweight whose ideas are long overdue for rediscovery.

Wonderfully archived, and told with a remarkable sense of intimacy, visual style, and musical panache, Susanne Rostock's inspiring biographical documentary, SING YOUR SONG, surveys the life and times of singer, actor, and activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer--inspired by Paul Robeson--and his experiences touring a segregated country, to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social-justice movements. Rostock reveals Belafonte as a tenacious hands-on activist who worked intimately with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mobilized celebrities for social justice, participated in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and took action to counter gang violence, imprisonment, and the incarceration of youth.

Obama and his anger translator, Luther, share a special message for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.