The American Vice President 2024

The American Vice President explores the little-known story of the second-highest office in the land, tracing its evolution from a constitutional afterthought to a position of political consequence. Focusing on the fraught period between 1963 and 1974, when a grief-stricken and then scandal-plagued America was forced to clarify the role of the vice president, the film examines the passage and first uses of the 25th Amendment and offers a fresh and surprising perspective on succession in the executive branch.

Stax’s proximity to the Civil Rights Movement and struggle for black American liberation was well established prior to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., mere city blocks away from the label’s headquarters. It deepened thereafter, as Stax label head Al Bell forged an ongoing partnership with King confidante Rev. Jesse Jackson. Around the same time that Jackson spun off his own Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) from the Southern Christian Leadership Council’s Operation Breadbasket, he’d also ascended as a household name, thanks to the success of a recording of his signature litany, “I Am Somebody.” A recording of the speech, made famous by Jackson at rallies and meetings in Chicago, had gained notoriety nationwide with the help of its own Stax Records LP.

An authoritative account of the second president of the United States that shows how John Adams's leadership and legacy defined the office for those who followed and ensured the survival of the American republic.