Declarations: Black Americans and the Revolutionary War

Declarations: Black Americans and the Revolutionary War is a one-hour documentary premiering Monday, June 29, 2026 at 10pm ET on PBS (check local listings). Produced by VPM, Virginia's home for public media, in association with PBS, the film is part of PBS America at 250, a multiyear celebration marking the country's Semiquincentennial. Maya Tepler co-wrote and produced the film alongside director Stacey L. Holman. It had its world premiere in New York City on June 20, 2026.

The film follows four Black Americans navigating the fight for independence and their own pursuits of freedom: James Lafayette, a double agent for the Patriots whose intelligence helped secure the British defeat at Yorktown; Harry Washington; Elizabeth Freeman; and Abraham Peyton Skipwith. Their stories are framed around four ideals drawn from the Declaration of Independence: equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

A New Approach To Difficult Archive. Telling Black-centered stories from the Revolutionary era means confronting a thin and often dehumanizing visual record. To bring these figures to life, the filmmakers worked with artist and researcher Hudson Campbell, who created oil paintings of the four subjects rooted in historical portraiture, then used AI tools to animate them while preserving his own artistic style. Every rendering went through hundreds of iterations and rounds of notes with the creative team and historical advisors Stephen Seals (Colonial Williamsburg), Dr. Ed Ayers (National Humanities Medal recipient), and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Pollard. The media have described the work as a blueprint for using generative AI responsibly: artist-centric, historically accurate, and ethically grounded.