Spike Lee takes his typically controversial look at the tradition of minstrelsy in this 2000 film. Determined to broadcast an offensive television show that will get him fired, Pierre Delacroix produces Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show. Far from a failure, however, the show is an enormous success.
Stephen Foster's interesting yet tragic life receives fascinating treatment in this episode of PBS's American Experience.
California's dramatic and immediate transformation makes up a large part of this story, but perhaps more compelling is the account of the less gold-plated underside of the Gold Rush experience: the persecution of the Chinese, the impact on Native Americans, and the rise of the corporate mining interests that soon monopolized the profits.