In 1936, nine boys from the University of Washington took the rowing world and a nation by storm, when their eight-oar crew team captured the gold medal at the Olympics in Berlin. The boys' victory, and their obstacles, inspired a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Depression.

Althea Gibson emerged as a most unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world of the 1950s. Her roots as a sharecropper's daughter, her family's migration to Harlem, her mentoring from Sugar Ray Robinson, David Dinkins and others, and her fame that thrust her unwillingly into the glare of the early Civil Rights movement, all bring the story into a much broader realm of African American history, transcending sports.

An essential examination of the rise and fall of Orenthal James Simpson, and parallels between his incredible story with that of race in America. This critically-acclaimed documentary series reveals how he first became a football star, why America fell in love with him off the field, what happened in the trial for his ex-wife's murder, and finally, why he is now sitting in jail for another crime 20 years later.