Self is a real person portrayed by Duke Ellington in the TV series American Experience (based on a true story).
In the first episode they appeared in, titled Duke Ellington: Reminiscing in Tempo (season 4), they were 92 years old.
They appear in 2 episodes out of a total of 387 aired so far
Self is also portrayed by Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Fontaine, Judy Garland, Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Charles Chaplin, Martin Scorsese and Nancy Allen.
Episodes2
Duke Ellington: Reminiscing in Tempo
episode S4.E8 december 1991The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
episode S33.E3 march 2021The Blinding of Isaac Woodard: How a horrific incident of racial violence became a powerful catalyst for the civil rights movement. In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel's book "Unexampled Courage", the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jump-started the modern civil rights movement.
- Duke Ellington: Reminiscing in Tempo
- The Blinding of Isaac Woodard