History Channel Releasing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s ‘Fight the Power’ Documentary on Juneteenth

The History Channel will be honoring the Juneteenth holiday by airing a documentary executive-produced and narrated by NBA champion and social justice advocate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Titled Fight the Power: The Movements That Changed America, the one-hour documentary chronicles the social justice movements that helped reshape American history, The Root reports. Deborah Morales of Iconomy Multi-Media & Entertainment helped executive produce the project alongside the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.

“One of this country’s greatest strengths is its willingness to listen to the voices of its people – whether at the ballot box or in the streets – and make changes to bring about a more equitable society,” said Abdul-Jabbar.

Highlights include the protests within the 1880s labor movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, and the current Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ movements as they are “in the American DNA and this documentary gives an unfiltered look at the ways it has evolved the world in which we live,” the History Channel says, via The Futon Critic.

The Juneteenth release date commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. In 2019, all but four states regarded Juneteenth as a holiday, CNN reports. In February, lawmakers came together to make the day a national holiday.

“Protest helped forge American independence in 1776 and continues to serve as a charged impetus for change in the 21st century,” the news release read. “Civil disobedience has always forced our country to take an uncompromising look at itself to judge if we are on the right course and seek to answer the question: does the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice when pressure is applied?”

The documentary includes interviews and firsthand accounts from Abdul-Jabar and others incorporated with anecdotes from historians and authors as historical imagery and current footage help take viewers on a visual journey through time.