Ken Burns' JACKIE ROBINSON to DVD / BD in April

PBS Distribution announced today it is releasing KEN BURNS’S: “JACKIE ROBINSON” on DVD and Blu-ray April 12, 2016, coinciding with its PBS airing. This new four hour documentary, directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, tells the story of Jack Roosevelt Robinson, who rose from humble origins to break baseball’s color barrier. Robinson waged a fierce lifelong battle for first-class citizenship for all African Americans that transcends even his remarkable athletic achievements.  

The run time of the program is approximately 240 minutes on 2 discs.  The SRP for the DVD is $24.99 and $29.99 for Blu-ray. The program will also be available for digital download.   

“Jackie Robinson is the most important figure in our nation’s most important game,” said Ken Burns. “He gave us our first lasting progress in civil rights since the Civil War and, ever since I finished my BASEBALL series in 1994, I’ve been eager to make a stand-alone film about the life of this courageous American. There was so much more to say not only about Robinson’s barrier-breaking moment in 1947, but about how his upbringing shaped his intolerance for any form of discrimination and how after his baseball career, he spoke out tirelessly against racial injustice, even after his star had begun to dim.” 

Born in 1919 to tenant farmers in rural Georgia and raised in Pasadena, California, Robinson challenged institutional racism long before he integrated Major League Baseball. As a teenager, he demanded service at a Woolworth’s lunch counter and refused to sit in the segregated balcony at a local movie theater. In 1944, while serving as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Robinson was arrested after he defied an order from a civilian bus driver to move to the back of a military bus. He was found not guilty.

Ken Burn's JACKIE ROBINSON on DVD/BD on April 12

PBS Distribution announced today it is releasing KEN BURNS’S: “JACKIE ROBINSON” on DVD and Blu-ray April 12, 2016, coinciding with its PBS tv airing. This new four hour documentary, directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, tells the story of Jack Roosevelt Robinson, who rose from humble origins to break baseball’s color barrier. Robinson waged a fierce lifelong battle for first-class citizenship for all African Americans that transcends even his remarkable athletic achievements.

The run time of the program is approximately 240 minutes on 2 discs. The SRP for the DVD is $24.99 and $29.99 for Blu-ray. The program will also be available for digital download. 

"Jackie Robinson is the most important figure in our nation’s most important game,” said Ken Burns. “He gave us our first lasting progress in civil rights since the Civil War and, ever since I finished my BASEBALL series in 1994, I’ve been eager to make a stand-alone film about the life of this courageous American. There was so much more to say not only about Robinson’s barrier-breaking moment in 1947, but about how his upbringing shaped his intolerance for any form of discrimination and how after his baseball career, he spoke out tirelessly against racial injustice, even after his star had begun to dim.”