‘Watchmen’ And Other Juneteenth Programming Available for Free And On-Demand
A number of networks are offering up free on-demand programming that is relevant to Juneteenth this weekend. Here’s a partial list of some great shows and episodes.
Watchmen: If you don’t have HBO, or you missed the series when it aired on HBO, the cable network is allowing you to stream the series today through Sunday on their website and on-demand. The network will also carry a marathon of the nine-episode series on HBO and HBO Latino beginning Friday at 1 p.m. The series has taken new relevance recently: the series starts out with the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, an event that many viewers thought was fictitious. You can learn more about that incident, also known as The Massacre of Black Wall Street, here.
black-ish The season 4 premeiere episode, “Juneteenth,” taught a lot of viewers about the holiday. In the episode, Dre (Anthony Anderson) sees a Columbus Day show at his son’s school and decides he wants to replace that holiday with Juneteenth. Inspired by Hamilton, the musical episode calls out some “historical inaccuracies” (which you might also refer to as “lies”). black-ish is on ABC and Hulu.
Just Mercy The film, starring Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, a real-life lawyer who defended Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian (played by Jamie Foxx), a man imprisoned in Alabama for a murder he didn’t commit. Warner Brothers made the film free to rent on multiple platforms — including Amazon, YouTube and Google Play — through the end of June.
Miss Juneteenth This independent film tells the story of Turquoise Jones, a single mom who holds down a household including a rebellious teenager. She is also a beauty queen—a former Miss Juneteenth––but life didn’t turn out as beautifully as the title promises. She is trying to coach her daughter, Kai, to become Miss Juneteenth, even if Kai wants something else. Fittingly, it debuts today (Juneteenth), on-demand. Watch the trailer below.
Da 5 Bloods You need a Netflix subscription for this one, but it’s worth it. Spike Lee’s tale of four Black Vietnam vets in the present day (one of them wears a “Make America Great Again” hat) return to Vietnam to collect the remains of their commander, who they left behind decades ago. Netflix has recently introduced a “Black Lives Matter” genre, which can introduce you to a lot of other great movies and documentaries.
