Just in time for baseball season, UNC-TV presents the much-anticipated Ken Burns documentary about the tumultuous life and times of Jack Roosevelt Robinson, the man who broke baseball’s color barrier and ushered in not only a new era in sports, but a new era in the long struggle for the civil rights of African-American people. The Durham Bulls are proud to be the corporate underwriter for the presentation of this two-part film on UNC-TV. Jackie Robinson airs over two consecutive nights, Monday, April 11, and Tuesday, April 12, starting at 9pm.

A two-part, four-hour film directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon, Jackie Robinson tells the story of an American icon whose life-long battle for first class citizenship for all African Americans transcends even his remarkable athletic achievements. “Jackie Robinson,” Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “was a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides.”

Jackie Robinson is a production of Florentine Films and WETA, Washington, D.C., in association with Major League Baseball. Directed and produced by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon; written by David McMahon and Sarah Burns; edited by Lewis Erskine A.C.E., George O’Donnell and Ted Raviv; cinematography Buddy Squires A.S.C.; original music by Wynton Marsalis; original music by Doug Wamble; narrated by Keith David.