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A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures
streamed with essays about the traditions and filmmaking. The site includes transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites.

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 Morgan Sexton: Bull Creek Banjo Player
 
Morgan Sexton: Bull Creek Banjo Player
Eastern Kentucky's Morgan Sexton cut his first banjo out of the bottom of a lard bucket, and some seventy years later won the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Award for his "amazingly pure and unaffected singing and playing style." In this program, the eighty-year-old Sexton shares his life and music.
Music, Work, Rural Life, Aging / Appalachia / 1991
28 minutes | Read More | Preview

The Hollow
A rare 1975 film on a rural impoverished community in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.
Family, Rural Life / Northeast / 1975
01 hour, 04 minutes | Read More | Preview

Carolina Hash

CAROLINA HASH starts with establishing as fact the myth that hash-popularity ends at the South Carolina borders. We learn that right across the state line in North Carolina, barbecue customers and restauranteurs "....don’t even know what hash is." The Brunswick stew states of North Carolina and Georgia which border South Carolina for the most part don’t know about it. But the tradition runs deep in all of South Carolina, and most native South Carolinians not only know about it - they can tell you where to go "....to get the best hash in South Carolina!" and the name of the hash-master.

Foodways, Regional, African American Culture / South / 2008
56 minutes | Read More

Mermaids, Frog Legs, and Fillets
Long before the advent of hip-hop as a multi-million dollar industry, African Americans were rapping and rhyming in the street, in their neighborhoods, and on the fish market docks in Washington DC. A 1978 film by academy award winning filmmaker Paul Wagner with folklorist Steve Zeitlin and Jack Santino.
Foodways, Work, African American Culture / Middle Atlantic / 1978
18 minutes | Read More

Albert Collins of South Blue Hill: A Video Portrait
Portrait of Albert "Hap" Collins of South Blue Hill, Maine. Hap Collins was a poet, painter, fiddler, lobster fisherman, storyteller, and craftsman.
Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Narrative & Verbal Arts, Work, Regional, Aging / Northeast / 1989
56 minutes | Read More

We Shall Not Be Moved: A history of the Tillery resettlement community

During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was supposed to give sharecroppers a chance at land ownership. But for Black farmers in Tillery, North Carolina, government intervention only added to their long struggle for economic and social justice.

African American Culture, Social Justice/Protest / South / 0000
46 minutes | Read More

Navajo Talking Picture
Film student Arlene Bowman (Navajo) travels to the Reservation to document the traditional ways of her grandmother.
Women, Native American / Southwest / 1986
40 minutes | Read More

Bill Monroe: Father of Bluegrass Music
I’d like for them to remember me as the father of Bluegrass music, the man that originated this music. —Bill Monroe
Music / South / 1993
01 hour, 31 minutes | Read More

United States Public Folklore: The Watershed Years
The intimate stories of how a few dedicated people changed US public policy and brought recognition and financial support to folk and traditional artists in the United States by creating and leading federal government efforts to support and present folk artists and folk cultures.
/ Middle Atlantic / 2008
57 minutes | Read More

The Cradle is Rocking
George "Kid Shiek" Cola and the Olymbia Brass Band are featured in this rare film about New Orleans Jazz, directed by Frank DeCola.
Music, Religion, African American Culture / South / 1968
12 minutes | Read More

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