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This Week: 

Exclusive Q&A with the directors of Citizen Ashe.

Plus, your last chance to watch this popular show on CNNgo.

Hear from the directors of Citizen Ashe in this exclusive Q&A

The new CNN Film, Citizen Ashe, explores the enduring legacy of tennis great and humanitarian Arthur Ashe, tracing his personal evolution from sports legend to global activist.

We spoke with the film's directing team, Emmy Award-winner Rex Miller and Academy Award-nominee Sam Pollard, about the inspiration to tell Ashe's story and how his legacy lives on. 

Q: Why did you feel it was important to tell Arthur Ashe's story now?

POLLARD: I had been aware of Ashe from the 1960s and did not quite understand how much he was a tennis trailblazer. So this an opportunity to get to know how important Arthur was to the Black community and the tennis world.

MILLER: Arthur brought people together from all sides of the debate. That is more important than ever in our fractured country where everybody is in their own silo. The takeaway on Arthur for me is, his call for people of all ages and sides of the debate to get involved.

"Start where you are," Arthur always said, "use what you have, do what you can.” But, he also would point out, “You can't do nothing."

Q: While making the film, did you learn anything about Ashe that surprised you?

POLLARD: I did not know how Arthur was involved in wanting to break back of Apartheid in South Africa.

MILLER: I learned that Arthur was often called an "Uncle Tom" by many African-Americans in the Civil Rights movement, who thought he should be more militant, especially early in his career. I also learned that he didn’t care, that he was going to go about changing the world his way.

I learned that while Arthur was winning the 1968 US Open, he was also a Lieutenant in the US Army, stationed at West Point, during the height of the Vietnam War, and all the protests. Not many people know that.

Director Sam Pollard (second from the left), Johnnie Ashe (middle) and director Rex Miller (far right) attend a screening of Citizen Ashe at 2021 DOC NYC. SOURCE: John Nowak/CNN 

Q: How do you see Ashe's legacy of advocacy continued in sports today?

POLLARD: When you see the activism in the NBA and from folks like Colin Kapernick and Naomi Osaka you are seeing the legacy of Arthur’s activism.

MILLER: I see folks like Kaepernick and LeBron speaking up and speaking out, but also young not so famous athletes like Coco Gauff. And in less heralded moments, Akim Aliu brought the issue of racial inequity to a place that it has rarely reached: professional hockey. The WNBA's Seattle Storm players staged a pre-game rally to show support for the organization Planned Parenthood; in 2020 NBA players from the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic collectively boycotted Game 5 of the NBA playoffs to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake; Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics guard who within weeks of the George Floyd and Breanna Taylor murders had decided she would not play basketball that year. 

"I have a responsibility to myself, to my community and to my future children to fight for something that is much bigger than myself and the game of basketball,” Cloud said in a statement, “I will instead continue the fight for social reform, because until Black lives matter, all lives can't matter.”

So many stories.

Q: For people interested in continuing to learn more about him and what he stood for, which of Ashe's books do you recommend? 

POLLARD: The book I would recommend is Days of Grace written with Arnold Rampersad.

MILLER: The book I would recommend is Levels of The Game by John McPhee, a story which is constructed around a point-by-point account of a single tennis match played in 1968 by Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. McPhee provides a brilliant, stroke-by-stroke description while examining the backgrounds and attitudes which have molded the players' games.

Citizen Ashe premieres on CNN on Sunday, June 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. 

Juneteenth programming: Dreamland re-airs this weekend 

CNN will re-air the CNN Film Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street this weekend. Directed by Salima Koroma, the film is a celebration of Black achievement and an investigation into the century-old, racially-motivated mass murder that destroyed the Black Wall Street neighborhood of the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Dreamland will air Saturday, June 18 at 9 p.m. ET. 

Also on the agenda this weekend: CNN will exclusively broadcast a first-of-its-kind concert live from Los Angeles in honor of Juneteenth on Sunday, June 19, starting at 7 p.m. ET. Juneteenth: A Global Celebration for Freedom will feature performances by Jhené Aiko, Khalid, Questlove, Mickey Guyton and other Black artists. 

WATCH: When Marilyn Monroe learned she was underpaid, she had a bold response

Watch Reframed: Marilyn Monroe on CNNgo before it's too late 

It's your last chance to watch the CNN Original Series Reframed: Marilyn Monroe on CNNgo before it leaves the platform on June 22.  

Reframed: Marilyn Monroe is a four-part CNN Original Series that revisits the extraordinary story of a girl who sprang from nowhere to become the most famous woman in the world. Narrated by Golden Globe-winning actress Jessica Chastain and featuring a star-studded cast of female voices, the series re-examines Monroe’s story to uncover themes of feminism, sexuality and power that continue to drive the cultural conversation today.

You don't want to miss your chance to learn about the enduring icon from a fascinating new lens.

Read about what award-winning journalist Christina Newland, who is featured in the series, had to say about Monroe here. 

Watch the trailer for Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down coming to theaters July 15 

Last week, the trailer dropped for the new CNN Film Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down. The documentary, directed by RBG and Julia directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen, follows former US Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ remarkable perseverance following a horrific 2011 assassination attempt that left her with partial paralysis and the language impairment called aphasia. 

Home movies taken at the hospital alongside current-day footage shows Gifford’s painstaking and miraculous recovery from a gunshot to her head, and her path to becoming one of America’s most effective advocates for gun violence prevention.  

You can watch the trailer here. Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down premieres in theaters on July 15.