ESPN will televise an original two-part, four-hour film focusing on the civil rights movement as told through the lives of basketball players and coaches who attended Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

“Black Magic” will air commercial-free on ESPN at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on March 16 and 17.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Dan Klores and co-produced by basketball legend and Winston-Salem State graduate Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, “Black Magic” pulls from more than 200 hours of interviews and footage to explore the obstacles and challenges players and coaches at HBCUs were forced to overcome. From separate leagues and facilities to championship games and titles that never qualified for record books to secret games between black and white teams held in defiance of the law, programs at HBCUs thrived and laid the groundwork for the modern athlete.

The film is narrated by Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Samuel L. Jackson, jazz great Wynton Marsalis, and NBA superstar Chris Pau. It also features Willis Reed; Avery Johnson; Ben Wallace; John Chaney; historians Henry Louis Gates, Cleveland Sellers and Milton Katz; the widows of Clarence “Big House” Gaines and John McLendon; and othe