Stanley Nelson Film On Madam C.J. Walker Helps Launch WORLD Channel YouTube Initiative

WORLD Channel, the award-winning public television broadcaster and content producer behind series including AMERICA REFRAMED and Stories from the Stage, has a new initiative to expand the distribution of some original content to its Youtube channel beginning this month.

The program launches on Tuesday - in the wake of the Netflix release of Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker - with director Stanley Nelson's debut film Two Dollars and a Dream, a documentary on the true story of the trailblazing African American businesswoman. The streaming of the film rounds out WORLD Channel's Women's History Month programming.

One of America's leading documentarians, Stanley Nelson captures Madam C.J. Walker's rise from humble beginnings to become America's first self-made female millionaire. Nelson, the grandson of Freeman B. Ransom, the attorney and general manager of the Walker hair-care company, interviews the sales representatives, office assistants, executives and more who worked with Walker and knew her journey best. Along the way, Two Dollars and a Dream (1989) examines how Walker's commitment to excellence and the empowerment of the Black community also helped her become the nation's first Black philanthropist while her daughter, A'Lelia Walker, who grew up in a life of luxury, used her talents and wealth to help shape the Harlem Renaissance. Nelson's later works include the Emmy Award-winning Freedom Riders, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool.

"With this initiative, our Youtube channel will now offer more exclusive content to our audiences where they are and in alignment with our role in bringing more diverse stories to public media," said Chris Hastings, executive producer and editorial manager for WORLD Channel at WGBH Boston. "At a time when more and more Americans are looking for new streaming options, it's our hope that the channel's new content will provide viewers with an online platform where they can learn about different people and events from history and today while engaging in civil, insightful conversations."

Other films and digital series slated to stream on WORLD's Youtube Channel include the ITVS co-produced series Pulling the Thread: Unraveling Conspiracy Thinking (premiering April 1), which takes on the proliferation of conspiracy theories in American culture uncovering the reasons why otherwise rational people fall victim to them; The History of White People in America (premiering April 17), a series of musical animated shorts telling the history of how skin became race, and race became power; and the KQED-supported digital series States of America (premiering on Independence Day, July 4), featuring documentaries on one person from every state in the union.

Subscribe to WORLD Channel's Youtube Channel at youtube.com/worldchannel.