American Masters Sets W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause Documentary Premiere for
May 19 on PBS
American Masters will premiere the new documentary W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause on May 19, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET on PBS. The two-hour film traces Du Bois’s life from his birth just five years after the Emancipation Proclamation to his death on the eve of the 1963 March on Washington, exploring how his radical vision still shapes debates on race and democracy today.
Born February 23, 1868, Du Bois lived through the collapse of Reconstruction, two World Wars, and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. The film follows his life chronologically, with insight from leading scholars and writers, including Raymond Arsenault, Karida Brown, Eric Foner, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Eddie Glaude Jr., Nikole Hannah-Jones, David Levering Lewis, and Imani Perry.
For Du Bois, the written word was a weapon. He authored more than 20 books and fused scholarship with activism, using literature, data, and pioneering infographics to expose the structures of systemic racism. Drawing from his books, essays, speeches, and archival audio, the documentary highlights the power and beauty of his language through dramatic readings by Common, Courtney B. Vance, and Jeffrey Wright, with narration by Viola Davis.
Rebel With A Cause examines both Du Bois’s monumental public work and his private struggles—from the loss of his infant son to his lifelong encounters with racism—showing how his humanity fueled his activism and inspired movements from the Harlem Renaissance to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A fierce challenger of the status quo, Du Bois co-founded the NAACP, helped launch the Niagara Movement, interrogated contemporaries like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey, and helped lay groundwork for the United Nations, all while insisting that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line.”
“My hope is that this documentary invites reflection and sparks dialogue, not only about who Du Bois was, but about the world we continue to shape in his wake,” says director Rita Coburn. Coburn, a Peabody Award winner, previously directed acclaimed American Masters portraits of Maya Angelou (Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise) and Marian Anderson (Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands).
Now in its 40th season, American Masters continues its mission to illuminate the lives of transformative cultural figures through in-depth, artfully crafted documentaries. W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause is produced, written, and directed by Coburn, with an executive producing team that includes Andrew T. Carr, Sandra Evers-Manly, Leslie Fields-Cruz, B.K. Fulton, Denise A. Greene, and Michael Kantor, and an original score by Kathryn Bostic.
The film will be available to stream on PBS platforms concurrent with broadcast.
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