The Cold War and Civil Rights collide in a story of music, diplomacy and race. In 1955, America asked its greatest jazz artists to serve as cultural ambassadors. But how could they represent a country still practicing Jim Crow segregation?

The Jazz Ambassadors will premiere on PBS on Friday May 4th at 10pm. It is an Antelope/Normal Life Pictures Ltd. production for THIRTEEN/WNET (New York) in association with the BBC and ZDF, in collaboration with Arte. For more info, visit: thejazzambassadors.com

Set against a background of rising tension and protest, a Lakota teenager learns first-hand what it means to lead a new generation and enter adulthood in a world where the odds are stacked against him. Filmed over a five-year period, On a Knife Edge provides a privileged view into the interior world of George Dull Knife as he becomes politically active with the American Indian Movement, confronts the challenges of growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and wrestles with accepting leadership of his storied family from his aging father.

This hour-long film follows Eleni Gabre-Madhin, a woman with a dream. The charismatic Ethiopian economist wants to end hunger in her famine-plagued country. But rather than relying on foreign aid, she’s designed the nation’s first commodities exchange, which she hopes will revolutionize an ancient market system responsible for the country’s food shortages. See the Market Maker site at PBS.org for more.