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In 1955, as the Soviet Union’s pervasive propaganda about racism in the United States spread, the U.S. State Department asked its greatest jazz artists—including Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and their band members—to travel the world as cultural ambassadors. But the unrest back home forced these musicians to face a painful moral dilemma: how could they promote the image of tolerance when their country still practiced Jim Crow segregation and racial equality remained an unrealized dream? Narrated by Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton), The Jazz Ambassadors is a remarkable story of music, diplomacy, and race that reveals how America unwittingly gave the burgeoning civil rights movement a major voice on the world stage.
Includes post-screening Skype Q&A with director Hugo Berkeley, moderated by broadcaster Garvia Bailey.