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Program Bureau Video Library

Humanities Tennessee has created a lending library of award-winning video documentaries dealing with a broad range of topics on Southern history and culture. Videos are available free of charge to any non-profit, school, or community group in Tennessee.

All Day & All Night

Through interviews with legendary Blues musicians, this documentary short explores the historic role of Beale Street as a social and entertainment hub for rural African-Americans of the mid-south, as an environment in which young musicians apprenticed, and as a catalyst for taking the popularity of Blues musicians beyond the neighborhood.

Black Diamonds, Blues City

For over half a century, organized baseball denied African Americans a chance to earn a living playing the game.  In response, The Negro Leagues were created. These Negro League teams were very important community institutions, and nowhere were this more true than in the segregated South and in the city of Memphis. Black Diamonds, Blues City tells the story of The Negro Leagues and especially The Memphis Red Sox.

Blood Memory: the Legend of Beanie Short

Beanie Short deserted the Confederate Army during the Civil War and became an outlaw in the Turkey Neck Bend area of the upper Cumberland River. This documentary follows folklorist Lynwood Montrell as he rediscovers how the Short legend survives in the Turkey Neck Bend community today, and how oral traditions play a role in broader cultural transmission.

Dorothea Lange, A Visual Life

The focus of this documentary is Lange's photography of the American South and other subjects. The narration of Lange's insightful comments explores the role of her photos in social reform, and the nature and consequences of the medium for documenting the human condition.

Gandy Dancers: Last of Southern Black Railroad Crews

This program documents the occupational folklore of the crews that repaired and straightened rail lines for southern railroads. Enlivened by demonstrations from retired crewmembers, this program explores the relationship among task related work chants, synchronized actions, and the psychology of difficult physical labor.

M & M Smith: For Posterity's Sake

Rich in photographs, film clips, and reminiscences, this program highlights the Smith brothers' experience in the mass migration of African-Americans from the South to Harlem.

Raise the Dead

This documentary explores the traveling tent ministry of H. Richard Hall, the "long-haired preacher" who has brought Holiness-Pentecostal revivals to Appalachia since his Depression-era childhood.