Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ to Highlight Black Stories Year-Round With New Initiatives [Exclusive]

Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ are teaming up to continue to tell and share Black stories all year round, dropping more content each month across platforms. Starting this month, Hulu will launch Initiative 29, while Disney+ and ESPN+ will introduce Black History Always. The newly planned drops will highlight content like Hulu’s feature on Ría Thompson-Washington, a voting rights activist and democracy manager at the Center for Popular Democracy, The Proud Family on Disney+, and prominent Black Women in athletics on ESPN+.

Both initiatives “will expand upon each streamer’s ongoing efforts of diverse storytelling and will serve as a year-round platform specifically for Black storylines, characters and creators,” per a blog post from all three streamers. On the 29th of each month, Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ will all release new content available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike, offering “unique and authentic” entertainment that represents “a continued commitment to Black storytelling.”

On Hulu, Initiative 29 will be accessible through Hulu’s Black Stories hub, on Hulu’s YouTube Channel and the Hulu Facebook page. There, viewers will find “socially conscious, short-form” content ranging from six to eight minutes, starting with Thompson-Washington’s story. Hulu will also release new content to its Black Stories hub each month, adding films, TV shows and documentaries like All of Us, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Malcom X, Brooklyn’s Finest and Farewell Amor.

At Disney+, subscribers and non-subscribers can tune in to the streamer’s Black History Always content, which will kick off with new YouTube episodes starting with The Proud Family. Disney+ will also highlight their Celebrate Black Stories collection on their homepage, pointing viewers to titles like Soul, Black Is King, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Black Panther, and the new Marvel series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

And over at ESPN+, sports fans can enjoy the first Black History Always special from The Undefeated, A Love Letter to Black Women, which highlights some of the most influential and celebrated Black women in modern history. Over the course of 30 minutes, A Love Letter to Black Women honors figures like ESPN’s Elle Duncan, tennis champion Serena Williams, softball’s AJ Andrews, WNBA player Lisa Leslie, Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix, artist and writer Vanessa German, and musician Jensen McCrae. The special will also feature ESPN’s Talaya Wilkins and The Undefeated’s Jesse Washington, plus Russell Wilson and Isaiah Thomas.