Through a secret program called the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), there was a concerted effort to subvert the will of the people to avoid the rise "of a Black Messiah" that would mobilize the African-American community into a meaningful political force. This documentary establishes historical perspective on the measures initiated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI which aimed to discredit black political figures and forces of the late 1960's and early 1970's. Combining declassified documents, interviews, rare footage and exhaustive research, it investigates the government's role in the assassinations of Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Martin Luther King Jr. Were the murders the result of this concerted effort to avoid "a Black Messiah"?

Author of the pivotal A People's History of the United States, historian and activist Howard Zinn has been at the forefront of progressive thought in America for decades. Through archival materials, interviews with Noam Chomsky, Marian Wright Edelman, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden and Alice Walker, and commentary from Zinn himself, this documentary chronicles the influential thinker's inspiring commitment to social change. Matt Damon narrates.