(jazz music) - I am proud of my Blackness, proud of the accomplishments of Black people.

Think of me as the kind of Negro who comes to the conclusion that he isn't going to beg for anything, that he will be reasonable, but he damned well is tired of being patient.

- Jackie Robinson.

- When I made my series on baseball, I told people it was the sequel to our Civil War series and they looked at me like I was nuts.

But if you want to know what happens after the Civil War, the most important event in our country's history, baseball is part of that story.

Let's remember that the first real progress in civil rights, since the Civil War happened not at a lunch counter in North Carolina, not on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, not in a school in Topeka, Kansas, but on a baseball diamond in Brooklyn, New York, when on April 15th, 1947, Jack Roosevelt Robinson, the grandson of a slave, made his way to first base.

Sports are an important mirror of who we are.

And when I look at where we've been, two athletes stand out to me, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali.

Two barrier breaking Black athletes whose words and deeds changed the country and proved every bit as meaningful as their achievements on the field and in the ring.

- More than anything else, what African Americans have wanted from America is a seat at the table.

Jackie Robinson knew once he got in the door, you could knock down all of these conventions.

First, you get out there and you prove you can play.

Then you can start talking back to umps.

Then you start dealing with writers on your terms instead of their terms, then you start fighting to make sure the hotels are integrated.

And over time, Jackie Robinson has pushed us forward.

For him, there was no satisfaction with simply being allowed to enter the room.

- Jackie Robinson re-imagined what was possible.

He signaled the beginning of a new fight for freedom and 20 years later, heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali risked his career and freedom to do the same.

He stood on the foundation Robinson had laid and his refusal to compromise on his beliefs and his willingness to sacrifice everything for those beliefs was another step as athletes help lead the fight for justice.

- Well, whatever the punishment, whatever the persecution is for standing up for my religious beliefs, even if it means facing machine gun fire that day, I will face it before denouncing Elijah Muhammad and the religion of Islam.

I'm ready to die.

- When I think about him saying, if they want to put me before a firing squad tomorrow, I'm ready to die before I abandon my religion.

That's it.

You can't teach that kind of thing in lectures and books.

That kind of thing has to be modeled.

And models turn into traditions and traditions provide people with the mechanical memory to do the right thing.

- The force of Robinson and Ali's examples resonates as deeply in our current moment as it did in theirs.

Once again, we see athletes expanding on the tradition of meaningful protests set by these pioneering figures.

In my films, I always look to explore subjects that reveal something telling and crucial about the American story.

And for me, sports can serve as a kind of x-ray of the health of the United States.

It's where we get a unique and raw sense of where we are as a country.