Check your local listings about this program. It sounds very, very interesting!

This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys

In six hours of dramatic storytelling, THIS FAR BY FAITH: AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS examines the African-American religious experience. From the arrival of the early African slaves through the Civil War, reconstruction, Jim Crow, the great depression, the civil rights era, and into the 21st century, THIS FAR BY FAITH, airing on PBS Tuesday-Thursday, June 24-26, 2003, (check local listings), explores the connections between faith and the development of African-American cultural values. Lorraine Toussaint ("Any Day Now," "Crossing Jordan") narrates.

THIS FAR BY FAITH is the last project conceptualized by legendary filmmaker Henry Hampton. Hampton's contributions to television include AMERICA'S WAR ON POVERTY and the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning EYES ON THE PRIZE and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE "Malcolm X: Make It Plain." Before his death in 1998, Hampton wrote that it was his dream to celebrate the sweep and range of African-American religious experience "in the context of the nation's struggle to realize the goals of democracy and humanity, the heart and soul of America itself: who we are as a nation, what we believe as a people, and what we consider worth dying - and living - for."

"THIS FAR BY FAITH explores how African Americans fought for their spiritual traditions," says executive producer of The Faith Project, June Cross. "It describes how those traditions sustained them as they struggled for the right to express themselves, and how, out of that struggle, the very cultural, political, and social fabric of this nation was transformed. This Far by Faith started as the vision of one extraordinary man - Henry Hampton, the founder of Blackside Inc. He inspired so many of us-including the team which initially gathered to produce Faith after his death. Our faith in his vision meant we could not rest - we could not let his memory rest - until this series aired."

Each hour-long episode combines rich archival photography, compelling music, inspiring interviews, and vibrant recreations to shed light on a population that has confronted adversity and clung to hope since the first enslaved peoples arrived on these shores.

"THIS FAR BY FAITH explores the African-American community's ever-present faith in a higher power," adds Dante James, series executive producer for Blackside Inc. "A faith that has sustained black people and empowered them to change a society that for generations has challenged and often denied their humanity and dignity. This series makes clear that spirituality of any form can be a basis for truth and understanding - and a vehicle for all people to find common ground as human beings."

The first hour, "There Is a River," begins with the stories of Sojourner Truth and Denmark Vesey. Both were born into slavery, and both used the Gospel to shape their identities; however, both use their voices in very different ways - one chooses retribution and the other, engagement.

Hour two, "God Is a Negro," takes place after Emancipation, when minister-turned-journalist Henry McNeal Turner uses the black church to engage black people in the political realm. Denied access to the institutions of society at large, black religious communities found and maintain their own grammar schools, universities, banks, insurance companies, printing presses, nursing homes and hospitals.

Hour three, "Guide My Feet," begins in the Jim Crow era, when many African Americans migrated north. In Chicago, Thomas C. Dorsey, a pianist with blues singer Ma Rainey, melds his religious faith with his musical talent to invent what we know as gospel music. In present-day San Francisco, the Reverend Cecil Williams takes his religious faith and his compassion for all people to the streets and builds the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church congregation.

Hour four, "Freedom Faith," follows the Civil Rights movement in the years after World War II. Ordinary people risk their lives to challenge the sin of racism in American culture and strive to fulfill the nation's promise of "liberty and justice for all." For many, the belief that God intended all people to be equal and free sustains them in the struggle.

Hour five, "Inheritors of the Faith," plots the growth of the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad. After his death, his son, Warith, departs from his father's teachings and leads the Nation of Islam towards a more orthodox practice of Islam.

The series concludes with hour six, "Rise Up and Call Their Names," which chronicles a two-year interfaith, multiracial, multiethnic pilgrimage from Massachusetts to Africa - by way of Florida and the Caribbean - undertaken to heal the wounds of slavery. But is religious belief alone enough to hold the pilgrimage together?