The HistoryMakers Program, Entertainment Makers: On Screen and Behind the Scenes, Streams Today, January 13th, at 8pm CT

The HistoryMakers invite you to tune in tonight—Thursday, January 13th—at 9:00 p.m. EST/ 8:00 p.m. CST/ 6:00 p.m. PST for the YouTube premiere of EntertainmentMakers: On Screen and Behind The Scenes available here: https://youtu.be/N2WjsCzXud4 (and by clicking the video below). The program will feature Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first African-American president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts an Sciences; Chaz Ebert, philanthropist and publisher and CEO of Ebert Digital; Reuben Cannon ("The Color Purple"), the first Black casting director in Hollywood; and stand-up comedian, actor and former writer for "The Redd Foxx Show," George Wallace, discussing the mentors and role models who have encouraged and inspired them.

The HistoryMakers, headquartered in Chicago, is a 501 (c)(3) organization and is the world's largest African American video oral history archive and depository. Twenty years ago, attorney Julieanna Richardson looked around and saw that much of the public knowledge of the Black experience and the contributions of African Americans was extremely limited and in some instances, harmful to American society as a whole. So she set out to research, gather information and interviews and document and preserve achievements and history. HistoryMakers was born.

With education as its mission, its one-of-a-kind collection is housed permanently at the Library of Congress and provides an unprecedented and irreplaceable physical and online record of African American lives, accomplishments, and contributions through unique first-person testimony. The HistoryMakers Digital Archive supports in-person, virtual and hybrid learning models and experienced significant growth during the pandemic.