AMERICAN CREED — citizen power

PROJECT BACKGROUND

PBS launched the ongoing American Creed initiative in 2018 with a documentary that asked: What does it mean to be American? The feature-length film and an accompanying collection of PBS LearningMedia shorts have been viewed by more than a million Americans. These documentary shorts—stories of people working to realize their own visions of foundational American ideals—continue to be viewed and discussed in high school classrooms around the country.

“You don’t have to be an extraordinary person to do extraordinary things.” –Jasilyn Charger

Amid ongoing turbulence, a new American Creed documentary series follows young leaders who appeal to ideals like freedom, fairness and opportunity as they seek to address what they see as the greatest challenges facing their communities and the nation. The stories of these “extraordinary, ordinary” young adults will interweave with dialogue between them, guided by Stanford University professors David M. Kennedy and Condoleezza Rice. Drs. Rice and Kennedy come together from their different perspectives in order to explore the American ideals these young leaders share in common, and learn from differences in outlook and approach.

A NATIONAL EDUCATION CAMPAIGN

Thanks to a production grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the producers of American Creed are creating new half-hour American Creed episodes for launch across PBS platforms in 2026. An education campaign coordinated by KQED Education and the National Writing Project for PBS LearningMedia is already in the works and will be fully national by then. 

The national Youth Media Challenge, a public media publishing platform coordinated by KQED Education with ~25 partner PBS stations around the country, will guide high school teachers to lead their classroom in publishing standards-aligned essays responding to variations on three basic prompts:

  1. What are America’s foundational ideals? 

  2. What are the obstacles to realizing those ideals?

  3. How might we overcome those obstacles?

Teacher trainings engaging educators around the country are conducted by the National Writing Project, the Youth Media Challenge’s curricular design and training partner.

VIDEOS

Meet some of the young leaders whose stories high school students will view and discuss before creating and sharing media of their own:

For a sense of the forthcoming PBS Series, view a 10-minute sample reel:

GET IN TOUCH